This story was first published in the Toronto Star on July 30, 1978.

Banana-face, you will be delighted to learn, no longer looks like a sausage.

I now look like a sausage with a string tied round its middle.

Yes, it is true. I have discovered the waistline.

I didn’t recognize it at first.

That’s because I’ve never had one before.

Oh, I knew what waistlines were, alright. Once, as a round child, I even looked up the word in the dictionary — WAISTLINE: “the line of the waist between the ribs and the hips.” And I had seen waistlines on other women, all of whom I immediately disliked, just on principle.

But I never had one of my own. I had no personal experience with waistlines.

Thus, at first glimpse, I wasn’t sure.

But with nothing better to do than gnaw on a banana (on the Banana Diet, you have a lot of time to kill), I looked again. And again. I spent a good 20 minutes in front of the mirror. But the slight indentation that lurked just below my rib cage didn’t go away, even after I cleaned my glasses.

My initial thought was that years of wearing pants one size too small had done me permanent damage. Or that I had slept oddly the night before and twisted myself out of shape somehow. Or that there was something wrong with the mirror.

There wasn’t.

The slight concave curve is for real.

I have the beginnings of a waistline. I am elated.

I have also left the mirror only to go to the bathroom.

To appreciate what that means, you should know about the mirror.

It is a full-length one. It is also in the front hallway of my home.

From the archives: Clippings of Blatchford's work at the Star View document on Scribd

Still. I spent most of day six posting before it.

I smiled into it. (I am even smiling thinner).

From the archives: Clippings of Blatchford's work at the Star View document on Scribd

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I ate yesterday’s quota of goodies — six ’nanas and four of the dreaded hard-boiled eggs — in front of it.

I pulled a chair into the hallway and read in front of it.

Leanly, I stretched into the mirror.

I would have brushed my teeth before it, but I didn’t want to track toothpaste up and down the stairs.

It is not yet a genuine waistline. In fact, you have to look quite hard to notice it. But it is there, emerging slowly. Visions of lewd bikinis dance in my head.

The waistline is going to change my life drastically.

For one thing, I intend to purchase several other large full-length mirrors. These I will place strategically throughout my home so that I need not walk more than a few steps without catching a glimpse of myself.

At the office, I will spend more time in the bathroom, where there is a full-length mirror, admiring myself.

I will spend more time, too, looking in store windows. I will not be looking at the displays, but at my ever-shrinking reflection.

I will smile a lot.

Yes, day six, the Day of the Waistline, was a swell one.

I celebrated by having several extra glasses of water. That’s not as bad as it sounds, for I have been advised by a knowledgeable doctor, that sneaking a few extra glasses of liquid is okay, and will not impede the weight-losing.

Most of all, I celebrated by making friends with the mirror.

I grow increasingly found of myself.

I suspect that by tomorrow, when the Banana Diet ends and I weight myself for the final time, I will be completely unbearable. Smug. Vain. Self-righteous.

And gloriously gaunt.