MAGPIE TALES: The 1KG Pledge

"Oprah, are you ready to take the one 1kg pledge?" Arnie Trausdale asked, handing her the lead pendant.

How high he had climbed from working in the stock room at Lord & Taylor six years ago. Then he realized a dream by opening that little shop, really more a stall, in the Rengdorff Village Plaza. Nothing but hats and hand painted ties were sold a first. He served hibiscus-fennel tea for free at first until its full health benefits became better understood. He soon started spouting health advice as he sold packets of tea with the new line of t-shirts, and his first book came out the following spring.

By autumn there was a shop downtown across from Saks and one up in far north Carvaille, both carrying the moniker of the original shop at One Kimes Grove that had been shortened to 1KG. The media outreach began by accident when he filled in for Herve Hersch, the holistic hypnotist who'd come down with yak flu after his trip to Bhutan, and Arnie was brought in as a last minute replacement on the early, early show at 5 a.m. Obviously someone was watching since a national franchise followed the following season as well as his Sirius radio pilot and eventual Bravo series that combined Qi Gong, retro Jazzercize and Croatian Vraz Vorg Vaggle twists. Diet tips with a visualization of one's new fashion silhouette all as one channeled the "1kg lifestyle". That visualization centered around wearing the weighty pendant like a scarlet letter until achieving each month's goal -- dropping 1kg in order to fit into Arnie's Euro fashions for the next season.

Sitting under the studio lights in Chicago, Arnie passed the pendant to Oprah.

"Wow, it's heavy," she said.

"It's precisely 1kg," Arnie sniffed.

"Which is...around a couple of pounds. What? Yeah, Gail says it's like 2.2005 pounds."

"Oprah," Arnie said, grabbing her hand, "The key to embracing the 1kg lifestyle is not trying to translate into pounds but to live the life of metrics. The time has come for the U.S. to be the last nation to enter the 21st century."

"Wow, that's heavy, Arnie. I mean the concept, not just the pendant." Oprah strung the pendant to the gold chain around her neck.

The following month, it was announced that 1kg would be the premier program on the O Network.

(Our contribution to this week's Magpie Tales.)