“I may be going to hell in a bucket, babe. But at least I’m enjoying the ride.” – Grateful Dead
I have a brother who’s overweight. He’s my height and pretty much has my same frame. He was a great athlete in high school. Just like me, he was recruited to play college football. But that’s where our stories get dramatically different. I went on to play football. When I was done, I was determined not to become another one of those has-beens who gains a bunch of weight. So far I’ve succeeded. Just shy of my 48th birthday, I tip the scales at 169 pounds on my heaviest days. My brother is the antithesis of this. He never played college football. Instead, he picked up a fork. From what I can tell, he hasn’t put it down yet. To be brutally honest, if it wasn’t for that fork, he wouldn’t get any exercise at all. My brother now tips the scales in the 350 to 365 pound range. It fluctuates depending on if he’s at the feeding trough or starting a wacky diet that’s guaranteed to work. He made a statement toward me once saying I’m prejudiced toward fat people. I told him he was wrong. My prejudice is toward fat people who never try to do anything about it, like him. By the way, I don’t look at wacky, lose-weight-quick diets as really trying. That’s like saying I’m a business man, and your business is Amway. The scenario I actually used with my brother was such. Consider this: You’re driving through a neighborhood and all the houses on the street are in fine order. The grass is cut, the garden tended to, the paint is fresh on each house, except for one. This one house is in total disarray. The lawn is brown, the shutters falling off and there’s weeds everywhere. It’s a total mess. I asked, “How do you feel about the people who live in that house?” He said,”I’d think they were lazy and didn’t give a shit.” I agreed. “Now you know how I feel when I look at you,” I said. I told you that to tell you this. There seems to be a new epidemic sweeping the nation. YouTube has no shortage of what’s becoming known as the fattest kids. In some cases I wonder if people aren’t using that Kardashian method just to become famous. I have a video in this blog with a 7-year-old child weighing over 400 pounds.
The sad part, I saw that same kid a couple of years back on a TV show. They were calling her the fattest toddler when she was over 200 pounds. Do I blame the kid? Hell no! It’s the parents’ fault. Because of my acute memory for dumb things, I remember the mom on the show. She had a southern accent, not that this has anything to do with the rest of the story, just thought I’d mention it. The mother seemed to have limited mental faculties. She told the host of the show that she had no control over her daughter. Are you effing kidding me? Oh by the way, mommy was fat herself. In my opinion, the authorities should have rushed in right there and taken this child away. But that didn’t happen. We allow this imbecile of a mother to waltz out of that studio with that child in tow, and go on to pack another 200 pounds on her. Now she’s the star of a YouTube video. Haven’t we gone after people for a lot less? Remember the mom who was caught disciplining her kid in the backseat of an SUV? We were shocked as a country. This woman was tried and hung in the media. Where is the judge and jury on this one? When does child services jump in? Where’s Tipper Gore? I thought she tries to save all the children. I’ve now worked myself into a frenzy. I will now go and find a picture of awoman who’s never had a weight problem, Sophia Loren, to calm my nerves. Thank you and good night.
