Tuesday, August 07, 2007

Chubby Love

I went with my wife to the doctor's office last night. I had a chance to look at the other people in the waiting room. I know that as Americans we're getting heavier than ever. Supersize me has been our motto the past decade or so. Even so, I saw some folks so heavy they look like walking coronaries.

Medical insurers are looking at obesity, and morbid obesity (100 pounds or more overweight) as a rampant health problem, and wondered if part of why those folks were in to see the doc was because of, or in spite of, those weighty issues.

There was one young couple who had three children under five years of age. The dad and mom were so big I wondered how they ever got together in order to produce these three children. Dad was at least 6'4" tall with what I'd guess is about a 60" waist. At least. Mom was a lot shorter, but also matched height to weight. A beach ball of a woman.

I know there are people who are reading this who could stand to lose some weight. Especially my fellow Americans, and I'm one of you. I'm sitting and typing this knowing I should get off my flabby ass and do some sit-ups. I'm thinking, as I always do, it sure would be nice to shed those ten to twenty pounds. I'd be a lot further ahead than the couple I saw. They looked like between them they needed to lose the weight of a Humvee.

*******

Since I've now offended the weighted Americans reading this, I might as well offend my Mormon neighbors. In the book The Limerick, edited by Gershon Legman, there is this little ditty of a limerick:

The late Brigham Young was no neuter--
No faggot, no fairy, no fruiter.
Where ten thousand virgins
Succumbed to his urgin's
There now stands the great State of Utah.

OK, so the last line doesn't rhyme. Just say "Uter."

I've also offended any gay people reading this. Legman dates this limerick 1941, so it was done in a less enlightened time.

There's a legend that polygamy is all about sex. In one way it is, because the people engaged in it also engage in sex, most of them for procreation. But if you look at pictures of Brother Brigham's wives you can see it was less about sex, and more about taking these poor, homely creatures off the streets so they wouldn't frighten children.Uh-oh…there goes the homely vote. Damn. I wouldn't make a good politician.

Ciao for now.

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