Come On Baby Light My Pariah

I’m late onto the bandwagon with this one. Not because I hadn’t thought about it, just because I’ve been busy and hadn’t got around to it. Fat people are the new smokers. It is perfectly socially acceptable now to lean over to a fatty at a restaurant and instead of saying, “Would you please put that out?” say “Would you please put down the spoon?”

Bullies at school are no longer disciplined if the target is a chubby. They are applauded and sometimes get to be school captain. Just the other day I saw a bunch of kids rolling a rolly-polly in a muddy puddle and chanting, “Rub the mud like batter on a fatty.” The teacher nearby encouraged them with kind words saying, “Yeah, stick it to the gross little bastard…you missed a spot… yeah over there on zone three, area 14.” (That last bit isn’t entirely true.)

I was remarking on this to Jo Blogs the other day (if you haven’t had a look, click on that link. You’ll thank me. Not until you’ve finished here though, you with the kitten attention span) because her schtick is the “reality” show Australia’s Next Top Module. I was saying how eye wateringly funny The Biggest Loser is, not because it’s a show about people who try to lose weight by crying, but because it is legalised torture of overweight people for our amusement. I don’t watch it religiously any more, the only one I really stuck with was the first American one, but I feel the need to share some highlights that I’ve collected over time.

At a late stage in the competition, they strap the fatty’s lost weight onto the front of them. The weight is made up of the fatty's favourite food. Then they make them run laps. This is funny on many levels. Not only is it funny to watch someone crying and running at the same time, it’s funny because the aroma of their favourite food is flowing up their nostrils. It’s like the worlds heaviest and most obvious carrot on a stick. It’s also funny watching the combined snot and tears ruining the fatty’s favourite food as they run.

On a ‘face your fears and improve yourself day’ they ended up with a dead fatty in a flying fox. The flying fox is one where you lie on a stretcher much like the type that you always see rock fisherman being winched to safety in, and it is very high, and goes a long way. The fatty in question didn’t like heights. They also didn’t do their sums on whether the fatty would make it to the other end and the safety of the platform, or whether they would stretch out the cable and come to a complete stop in the middle of the ride, with a steep ascent of dangerously over stressed cabling on either side making a nice V shape. I am giggling just typing this… the fatty’s panic reaction to all of this was to pass out. All that could be detected from beneath, were two arms dangling on either side of the stretcher and a faint snoring sound. They yelled at him for a while to wake up, and then I think they just went home.

But this is the piece de resistance. They once had a team challenge to build the largest structure they could… out of food… without, wait for it, without using their hands. The sight of these people running backwards and forwards with sticky buns in their mouths, tears streaming from their eyes and saliva streaming from the sides of their mouths, is one I shall never forget. They’d get to their structure and there’d be a tragic moment of indecision, followed by some not so subtle chewing, then the food would be deposited on the table and the fatty would be dragging themselves back for more, mumbling lost love imprecautions at the food. I laughed so hard I spilt chocolate sauce on my brownies.

Out in the real world, I also enjoy those stories where someone has had to have the side of their house taken down to get them to the hospital. There are two that have really charmed me lately.

The fattest man in the world recently lost half his weight, in losing half his weight, he lost an astonishing TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTY KILOS. That means he was a half-ton man. Half a ton… I have driven cars that weigh less than that. In final proof that there is someone for everyone though, his fiancé said she was very pleased. Now there’s an all-round sports girl for you. Or as I’m supposed to call them now “Enabler”.

The other one was a woman who had to be craned out after they demolished her room, because they suspected she had broken a bone. Realising that she was too large for human X-ray machines, she was taken to the local zoo. When you are in line behind the rhinoceros at the medical clinic, your life has reached a pretty low ebb I reckon.

Anyway, it’s not all bad news for the larger among us. I was in Texas last year, and they are just normalising the hell out of being overweight. They have lobby groups that go around suing places until they widen the turnstiles. Airlines don’t know what to do next with people who patently should be buying two seats, but then tie them up in court proving that they’re only one person.

Actually talking of Americans normalising odd things - I had been wondering around a Texan shopping mall large enough to be seen from space, aware that there was a visual annoyance that I couldn’t quite put my finger on. It was just niggling away at me every time I passed a clothes store. It was something about the mannequins. When it hit me I had to stop myself from laughing out loud. The mannequins had all had breast augmentation. I don’t mean that they had been modified after manufacture, they were modelled on people who had had jobs done. That’s the market ladies. It’s that normal.

All this typing has made me hungry, time for lunch.