I got to talking in my discord about a bizarrely nonsensical short story I was assigned to read multiple times by different teachers, about, uh, aliens running miraculous fat removal booths to harvest energy, because clearly there's no more efficient way to go about that. Now that I'm older I understand that the whole thing is puritan tsk-tsking at the mere idea of being able to safely enjoy eating as much as you want or losing weight through any medium other than Suffering.

But I was surprised that no-one else in my discord had heard of it, given that multiple teachers assigned it to me independent of one another. So, if you do remember this story, please tell me so and in broad terms where you went to school (I would have been in Virginia at the time). Please don't flood me with a thousand "no, I haven't read it" posts.

The story is here if you're curious: https://www.quia.com/files/quia/users/christinawade/TextFiles/SciFi/H.O._Lose_Now,_Pay_Later.pdf