Did you know that the theft of used restaurant grease has become a multimillion-dollar industry? Me, either. I read in the newspaper that professional grease thieves can earn tens of thousands of dollars a year by sneaking up to the grease recycle bins behind restaurants and vacuuming out large amounts of left-over hamburger fat, french fry drippings, and fried chicken grease. It’s then sold to “grease fences,” who sell it to companies who use it to produce livestock feed, plastic products, and cosmetics.

Yes, the fat that once sizzled out of a hamburger at the local fast-food joint could end up as lip gloss on your makeup tray. It’s a shame the fat which has settled on plump hips can’t be recycled into something useful. If we could tap into the cellulite-dimpled backsides of all us overweight citizens, maybe we could eliminate the threat to our dwindling fossil fuels, as well as slow global warming. The recycled fat off my hips alone could fuel a Saudi taker for at least six months at high sea.

In a possibly related newspaper article, I read that a young Ohio man, nicknamed the “BVD Bandit,” had been arrested for sneaking into homes and snipping the underwear off the sleeping residents. Most people have written this guy off as a deranged pervert, but I suspect he’d read the previous article about the big money to be made from stealing used fat, and was trying to “get in on the action.” If the police had searched his pockets, they might have found liposuction equipment and his business card, which read, “Rudy’s Refinery. We Render Your Lard. A Moment on Your Lips and Hips, a Lifetime Fueling Our Ships.”

Unfortunately, the BVD Bandit was arrested before he got to my house, but I’m trying to get a patent on the homemade liposuction machine I invented, which involves a special attachment for an upright vacuum cleaner. For some reason, the patent office keeps hanging up on me.

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