Ladye Gayle suddenly turns off her cell phone and gets a scary look on her face. "I've decided to be totally honest with the doctor today. I'm gonna tell him about my addiction problem."

My mouth drops open. "Addiction? You're a druggie?"

She looks at me like I'm blonder than I am. "You might say that. Except that it's Breyer's Ice Cream that renders me powerless, not drugs. I don't dare walk down the frozen food aisle at Tweeters for fear of what I might do."

Georgia Faye yawns. "Aw, shoot. I can pass up Breyer's. But put one little teaspoon of Starbucks Chocolate Almond Fudge in my buggy's path, and watch me jump off the wagon, leap off the cart and pole vault off my diet. Now, that's what I call a problem, girlfriend."

Normally, we pretend Mary Grace is a hired chauffeur. That way, we're not tempted to talk to her and possibly bring on a premature conference with St. Peter. So today when she speaks up, we start looking for the quickest way to get out of the car.

"I think I have a computer chip embedded in my back molar," she says. "It kicks in when I taste food that tastes good."

Ladye Gayle, tightly gripping the door handle on her side of the car, is the first to speak. "A computer chip in your molar? You mean like Russell Crowe did in that movie, A Beautiful Mind? Mary Grace, he was crazy as a run over dog. You shouldn't go around saying things like that unless you want people to talk about you."

Mary Grace continues to speak in a singsong-like voice. "It's the weirdest thing. Nothing at all happens when I eat veggies. "That dang chip hunkers down in my mouth and takes a snooze if I crunch down on celery."

The inside of Mary Grace's SUV hasn't been this silent since it sat alone on the showroom floor. I don't know what the others are thinking, but two words pop up for me: shock treatments. Georgia Faye clears her throat. She's had more therapy than all of us put together so she's allowed to hold forth when a psychological issue comes up for any of the Doodahs. This looks like one of those times, so we automatically wait for her to comment.

"That's understandable, Mary Grace," she says in a voice so bland you'd think she was talking to a lamb chop. "Celery makes enough noise all by itself. It doesn't need a computer chip to speak for it."

I tighten my grip on the door handle. One more loopy comment and I'm so outta here. Ladye Gayle has not taken her eyes off our driver. "Mary Grace, Russell Crowe saw imaginary people. You don't see make-believe people, do you?"

Mary Grace whips her head around and that's when I start to pray. She glares at Ladye Gayle in the back seat and says, "So what if I do? What's wrong with that?"

Ladye Gayle's eyes are wide when she asks, "Do your people make you draw pictures and stuff the way Russell Crowe's people did?"

I feel like I have fallen down the rabbit hole. Can they both be as goofy as they sound?

"What? Don't you believe me? Ladye Gayle, you're just jealous because I can see them and you can't!" She sniffs before reverting to mute driving mode.

I tear my eyes away from the door handle to look out of the front window and what do I see? A black and white vehicle ahead of us about a quarter of a mile. Mary Grace sees it too, but instead of slowing down like any sane person would do, she floors it and we start sailing like the Flying Wallendas.

"Uh, Mary Grace? Are you nuts? That's a cop car."

"Don't talk to me! Can't you see I'm driving?"

"Uh, Mary Grace? That blue light on top doesn't mean a K-Mart special. That vehicle is equipped with standard issue handcuffs and guns. It has the word, "POLICE" painted from front to back and on both sides. You might want to slow down."

She zooms past the fuzz like the frontrunner at a NASCAR event. My head swivels around and I catch the cop's facial expression. It is not a pretty sight. I expect him to come tearing after us with that blue light flashing, but he doesn't.

Wise Ol' Georgia Faye nods her head and murmurs, "We've got nothing to worry about. The man knows."

I can't believe my ears. "Knows what Georgia Faye?"

Ladye Gayle hasn't torn her eyes away from Mary Grace's jaw line since she began drilling her about Russell Crowe. It's like she thinks the computer chip is going to pipe up with the Gettysburg Address.

Georgia Faye lets out a turbo, know-it-all sigh and says, "Four women speeding to Weighcross. Hello? He could stop us this close to reaching our goal, but he's way too smart."

I'm absolutely sure now about my rabbit hole theory. "What on earth are you talking about?"

She sighs. "If that cop causes us to miss our appointment with Dr. Fat, he might as well kiss his first Social Security check goodbye. He'd be dead before his siren stopped screaming and he knows it."

She's right. Sniffing a dieter on the way to Dr. Fat comes as easily to cops as finding Krispy Kreme Donuts.

For a month we've starved ourselves into a near electrolyte coma. We've crunched enough celery and carrots to convince Mary Grace she's growing a computer chip in a back molar. Should Dr. Fat declare a loss of even a pound, however, we will want to celebrate.

"Hey, Mary Grace, what does your computer chip say about us having lunch at the closest all-you-can-eat buffet?"

Mary Grace doesn't miss a beat. "I don't much care what that thing has to say about it. But if that little girl with the Mary Jane shoes and organdy pinafore says one word, I'm liable to slap her into the middle of next week."

I reach for the door handle again and begin the count down ... one more goofy word and I am so outta here!