Celebrity Encounter!

I don't live in the big city.  My town is a conurbation with a greater metro population of less than a million.  The traffic is still bearable (when it's not being rerouted through BFE due to stagnant road construction), the ghetto relatively safe for those who aren't idiots, and the entertainment scene, though growing, modest in scale.  And you run into the same dozen-odd people everywhere you go, like a damned sitcom.  So, aside from the off-chance run-in with a popular DJ, you don't encounter celebrities often.  That's why I was so psyched just a few days ago when who should wander into my place of employ but Dr. Ivo Robotnik, AKA Dr. Eggman.

Who's that you ask?

Well, for those of you 90s babies who are too young to recall, Dr. Robotnik/Eggman is the archnemesis of Sonic the Hedgehog, undeniably the coolest platform mascot of his time (suck it, Mario).  Yeah, Sega crashed and burned after the failure of its not-quite-next-gen Dreamcast, but the company was on the scene, kicking ass, and taking names long before Xbox was a pixelated gleam in Bill Gates' eye.  Sonic was the definition of a 90s kids' hero: laid-back yet defiant, funny, fearless, infinitely savvier than his enemies, as fast with his quips as his feet, and naked save for a pair of white gloves and red shoes (it was a weird time).  And his counterpoint was Dr. Robotnik, a morbidly obese, rage-prone, humorless megalomaniac who mostly moved around via motorized chairs and armed hovercraft, trying to turn the world's furry fauna into automated soulless simulacra.

Trust me, whenever this fucker showed up on-screen, your heart skipped a beat.

In short, he was exactly the kind of dickhead you wanted to see Sonic stick it to in every game and cartoon.  So you can imagine my surprise, and perhaps fathom my traumatic gaming flashbacks, when Robotnik showed up at my workplace less than an hour before close.  My first instinct, as soon as I recovered from shock, was to jump on his head, the only known weakness of such bosses.  Then I realized, to my chagrin, it was not in fact a video game icon, but just a really fat, angry dude in bright red who couldn't get his electric wheelchair through the motherfucking doorway.  He was that obese.

So, yeah, this whole thing was pretty much a lead-in to a fat joke.  Sorry, it's a slow week.  But I still have a point to this article, a touchy issue I am about to manhandle with all the sensitivity and compassion of George Carlin.  And I am not promising it will even be as funny as his take on social issues.  You've been warned, and that is as close to an apology as you will get out of me.

Few times in my career have I felt guilty about supplying our company's fat-, cholesterol-, sodium-, calorie-laden food to all and sundry, but I couldn't help feeling a bit dirty in this instance.  The man, if he could have stood, was probably no more than six feet tall, and had to weigh in excess of 450 pounds, judging by most gorillas I've known.  It was all I could do to stop myself laughing at his predicament, which I achieved only by pretending he wasn't there while he looked over our takeout menu.  When he asked me where the burgers were listed, I had to restrain the urge to direct him to the salad page.  My manager quietly suggested I offer him a drink while he waited, and I could not believe it - the guy was in all probability dying of Type 2 diabetes on the spot, and I'm supposed to push more calories and sugar on him?  Before you call me a callous, mean-spirited, opportunistic twat, let me just say, I am one.  Happy?

At least I do it for free.

But, seriously, where do you draw the line?  You do not become that overweight without giving up at some point and outright embracing it.  How can you find yourself repeatedly ramming a doorframe to enter an unhealthy restaurant without pausing to reconsider your situation?  It's sublimely absurdist, almost surreal, humor.  Likewise for those people who discover they cannot comfortably fit in the booths we provide.  Your first reaction should not be, "Why don't they build these things bigger?"  In America, we love to call this an "epidemic" of obesity, as if it is some manner of uncontrollable disease, feeding into our culture of victimhood and absolved responsibility, which I have discussed previously.  Wicked little fat-cells are floating around in the air, burrowing into our otherwise-chiseled physiques and multiplying like insidious, Viagra-powered rabbits, according to this theory.

Oddly enough, they look just like another classic video game boss: Kaid of Metroid Prime.

Granted, there are people who have genetic and contracted disorders that can lead to excessive weight-gain.  I am not talking about them.  And some people are more prone to pudginess than others.  But there's a reason gluttony is one of the seven deadly sins, right up there with its bastard half-brother sloth, and if I of all social commentators am siding with the Vatican, you know the problem is a genuine one.  Yes, I am officially labeling myself a "social commentator" now, because it sounds better than "arrogant, opinionated tool with a blog."

I hate to say it, but this is a byproduct of modern American fuzzy thinking, which intentionally blurs the lines of reason, accountability, and simple reality in favor of political correctness, pop psychobabble, and trendy "thinking."  To put it bluntly, nobody wants to call a spade a goddamned spade.  I am sick of hearing people claim that being fat is natural and we need to appreciate it.  Obviously, homo sapiens can fall into a plethora of body-types depending on the individual, but let's take a gander at the rest of the animal kingdom, shall we?  How often do you encounter morbidly obese whitetail deer?  Or coyotes?  For that matter, in countries where food is available but limited and generally healthy, why don't some people just grow up to resemble Chris Farley if that's part of our genetic makeup?  No other mammalian species has the massive weight-range we do, because it's not truly natural.

A lot of this has to do with knee-jerk reactionary sentiment, or, as I prefer to call it, people being dumbasses.  When starving yourself became a trend in professional modeling, the masses felt obliged to follow suit.  Well, now the pendulum has swung the other way.  Hard.  I think it started with the public outcry to re-proportion Barbie's smoking figure, because little girls apparently felt a deep pathological need to emulate their toys.

I empathize.  My childhood was a tormented, fruitless quest to look like this.

Nowadays, some commentators actually condemn fit female celebrities for projecting unrealistic, unhealthy images of feminine beauty when it's patently obvious the ladies in question are just well-toned and most likely health-conscious.  God forbid!  "Don't be fooled, little Sarah, you'll never look like that when you grow up, unless you exercise and watch your diet!  Only celebrities can do that!"  This bullshit has even reached the point that when I attempted to search "healthy model" on Google, one of its suggested alternate searches was "fat model."  Are you fucking serious?  We are now required to equate the word healthy with a word that means the opposite to avoid hurting feelings?  There is a difference between not hating yourself for being out of shape and blithely accepting it as an unalterable fact of life, or even lying to yourself.  It's not healthy, so why should you be perfectly all right with it?  Case in point?  Fat pride rallies.  No, I'm not making that up.  These happen.

*Not pictured: more fatsos, because they didn't fit in the frame.

I'm all for self-acceptance and healthy perception of body-image, but, really, flaunting your cellulite as if it's something to celebrate?  Where the hell is my alcohol enthusiasts' parade?  *Insert Saint Patrick's Day joke here (rimshot optional)*  Notice most people have no problem with taxing the hell out of habitual smokers and hiking their insurance rates to roughly 2032 levels, but throw their hands up in horror when we talk about doing anything similar to the horizontally-enabled (or whatever the PC term is now)?  Both are results of choices made, and anyone who says otherwise is sugar-coating the pill, which makes sense, because everyone loves sugar.

The truly disgusting part of this is the way parents doom the next generation to the same fate.  For whatever reasons, you're fine with being overweight.  That is your decision.  Fair enough.  But turning your offspring into little porkers when they are malleable and don't know any better is borderline criminal negligence.  As a server, I have seen far too many moms and dads let their child suck down cup after cup of Coca-Cola.  Or, if they're really responsible guardians, Diet Coke, because we all know carcinogenic artificial sweeteners, sodium, and empty calories are just what growing bodies need.  They're just kids, they can worry about working off the fat-rolls when they're older and it's ten times harder, right?  Nice logic.  And then you have the gall to encourage them to eat more unhealthy food?

CUSTOMER: (as if I already know or care what the kid's name is) Devin here will have the chicken fingers.
ME: (extremely reluctant, very fast, and barely audible) Any dipping sauce besides ketchup?
DEVIN: (enthusiastic) Ketchup!
CUSTOMER: Devin, how about some ranch?  Do you want ranch?
DEVIN: (insistent) Ketchup!
CUSTOMER: But what about ranch?
DEVIN: (whiny) I want ketchup!
CUSTOMER: He wants ranch.
ME: Fuck you. (but only on the inside)

Wrong on more levels than hell.

Why don't you just start poking them with needles now, so they're used to it by the time they hit 12 and have to take blood-glucose tests every day?  While you're at it, remind them frequently that they can expect to die years sooner and in much worse condition than humanity on the whole.  Teach them how to drive the superstore's Rascal carts at an early age, too.  That way, maybe they will be proficient enough to avoid getting lodged in the doorway of my restaurant.

Oh, yeah, I almost forgot the obligatory hot girl picture.

I mean, really, how dare she promote such a dangerously unhealthy, unattainable standard?  Whore.