It’s a terrible tragedy that the fat, unhealthy proportion of our population is looked down on. It’s due, of course, to the assumption that girth and binge-eating is a result of poor self-control and a lack of interest in your long term health. However, I’d like to propose a different concept. I’d like everyone to know that fat people aren’t lazy, they’re just dedicated to the human race. You see, fat people have super-powers, and someday, somehow, they’re going to save humanity.
Some readers might be laughing now, thinking I’m joking. OH NO, dear readers, I JEST NOT!
Who else has the capacity for such feats of strength? In the future, when all life must fight for survival in the empty darkness of space, fat people will be liberated from their perceived weaknesses due to zero-gravity conditions. Suddenly, a lifetime of dragging around an extra hundred pounds of gut-fat isn’t a disgusting testament to sloth and gluttony, it’s a training regimen that the poor, misunderstood fat people have dedicated themselves to for decades, despite the mockery and judgment of their peers.
Have you ever gone to the gym, watching the weightlifters congratulate one another in a (borderline homo-erotic) plethora of hugs and chest bumps, due to one of their number carrying a given weight for a given distance, or time, or number of repetitions? They smile, hug, kiss (I don’t go the gym much, so perhaps I’m misinformed, but one can still make conjectures as to their intimate feelings and actions) as they proudly state, “I just finished a set of fifty with that hundred pound weight thingy.” (Again, I repeat, little gym experience).
Then, they loudly congratulate each other in a series of gruff and animalistic noises and phrases such as ‘bro’, ‘dude’, and my personal favorite, ‘my beloved bro-mo-sapien’.
What they mean, however, is, “OH HEAVENS good sir, your strength is great and your achievement heroic. Let us embrace like gentlemen of great physique, heaving ourselves together with all the force our rippling, toned bodies can create.”
That, I assume, is where they kiss.
Also, I assume they’re inner feelings are British.
However, despite this fact, they will then leave the gym, done with their training.
But the obese never stop training. No, they continue their regimen daily, at all hours. They sleep with weights on, they eat with weights on, they eat more with weights on, and even work out with weights on. Well, they sort of work out. At least they walk to work, sometimes, if the weather’s nice and they live nearby. And it’s not raining. And not too hot, because…sweat, right? No one wants to see that.
But I digress.
No, they learn to harness their superhuman strength as a weapon, with each groaning heave of their bodies from sitting positions, with each wheezing gasp at the top of the stairs. The Fat are not lazy, they’re constantly training to save humanity.
PERHAPS YOU ARE NOT YET CONVINCED?
If so, let me continue to expound on the virtues of those with great girth.
Fat people are more than super-strong. Sure, they’ve got enough superhuman skill to be considered superhuman already, but they go further than that in their quest to save humankind
Fat people are also super-warm. They’re not “The Human Torch” from beloved comic series, “The Fantastic Four”, but they certainly have unusual amounts of heat.
Where I live in Alaska, that’s already almost a legitimate superpower. Apocalypse aside, it’s enough that at bus stops, strangers with boundary issues gather uncomfortably close, reaping the benefits of my size as they shiver slightly less in proximity to my tropical micro-climate.
But more than Alaskans, Russians, and Canadians benefit from this power: women everywhere, in their poorly-designed-thin-fabric-skin-showing-clothing benefit from this skill and ability daily. Ask any tubby hubby whose wife uses him like a portable heater.
Each winter, the thinnest and most attractive women suddenly congregate around the most sizable of men. Their size and warmth becomes a beacon of comfort against the cold, especially for those strange few women whose desire for hotness ignores their desire for staying warm (wordplay intended). These women intuitively know that the teddy-bear physique of a nerdy acquaintance is more than comfortable for laying against while complaining about a social life their human pillow will never understand…it’s also a living fire, a human furnace to banish the ravages of cold from the body, returning the women in question to a state of comfort sufficient to continue their poorly dressed crusade for attraction.
CONVINCED YET? Of course you are, but I’m NOT DONE!
As Billy Mays once said, “Wait, there’s more!”
The fat, obese, and often sweaty masses have more up their sleeve. In the aforementioned space-invasion-space-fights of the apocalyptic future, most of humankind will huddle together in poorly lighted shelters, waiting out the fights and action. In these shelters, the fat will become a commodity, giving lifesaving heat to protect from the obvious and inevitable nuclear winter that will likely cover the earth.
But what if humankind must abandon earth and flee to the stars? Even there, the size and warmth of their bodies will give lifesaving heat on the spacecraft fleeing the planet. The fat will use their admittedly body-odor-scented warmth to keep humanity alive in the darkest recesses of space, not only saving the bodies of the fleeing humans, but their morale, as the warmth of fat guts and multiple chins comforts the desolate, near empty spacecraft they will almost certainly serve as cook for.
Finally, as you nod in agreement, almost certainly considering writing a letter of thanks to your likely overweight uncle, grandfather, or only friend with real comedic talent (hint, personality might also be part of the fat-man repertoire), think on this final point.
The overweight men and women of our world have skills the skinniest and healthiest humans lack. No, I don’t mean strength and warmth this time. I don’t even mean size, though as far as superheroes go, being really big was the main superpower of more than a few b-list heroes, another point in the Fat People Positives checklist. I mean personality.
Super-power? Perhaps it is not. But super-human? It most certainly is. While the beautiful and thin men and women of the world were undergoing puberty, their bodies suddenly aware of their importance in the value of the individual, the fat and overweight men and women of the world learned to create personalities. They contended with mocking, sarcasm, and the ever helpful, “diet advice” of their peers. Instead of buckling under, they bounced back.
*Note, bouncing is not a superpower, so fat people bouncing well isn’t on this list, even if it is helpful when falling from tall heights, or accidentally bumping into others in an elevator. Probably also in car wrecks.
No, the obese masses became funny, or gained skills to validate their size. They became your computer IT consultant, your chefs, your comedians, and even the pillow and human diary of their more attractive and successful friends.
The fat of our society have faced oppression long enough. Their amusing personalities, instantaneous recollection of all local fast-food joints, and obvious qualities (superhuman strength, size, heat, and often, cooking skills) have been ignored long enough.
Do not think of them as lazy.
Do not think of them as undisciplined.
And certainly, do not think of them as pitiable.
You see, they are not the squeezable alter egos of important superheroes, they are much more the unashamed heroes whose identities require nothing more than a large waistline to differentiate them from the rest of the world. They need no spandex (which, I believe, might be important to remind some of them…), and they need no superhero names. They are beyond such things, almost a league of super-humans, set apart not by radiation or alien birth, but by skill and determination.
When the final hours of mankind begin to tick on the clock of fate, and the aliens or terrorists of a devilish overlord threaten humanity, do not look to the sky for Superman, his chiseled frame encased in bright blue. Do not turn to Batman, his genius inventions and billionaire resources a weapon against crime. And do not pray to your Gods, their divine interventions meaningless against such evil as Aliens or Orcs.
Turn to the Taco Bell drive-thru, the Wendy’s in the food court, and the entire 2-3 block range surrounding any KFC. Turn to the men and women who have pizza delivery on speed dial, and have memorized the menu at McDonalds. Turn to them, and offer them a ride…because walking and running really isn’t their strength. And as you drive away from the cataclysm of whatever danger has threatened the human race, after having given your portly saviors a ride, know that the meaty, beer-gutted, heavy breathing heroes are almost certainly worth their enormous weight in gold.
Thanks for reading,
Keep laughing,
Brian
