Why is everybody always picking on me?

                                                                                             By Dave Hamby

              There’s a conspiracy going on against fat folks. If  I’m going to be politically correct I guess I should say gravitationally challenged people.  I don’t know why it seems like skinny people hate us so and do everything they can to make us want to lose weight.

               Perhaps it’s because we can walk around in our shirt sleeves after a cold front blows through when those who are not lucky enough to have a good layer of insulation have their teeth chattering so hard their eyes can’t focus.

              I really started thinking about this when I went to our local super-store to buy some dress slacks.  The pants were all folded neatly on these shelves with the skinny guy’s sizes on the top shelf and the waist sizes increasing as you got closer to the floor.   The super big sizes, 50 waist- 30 length, were on the very bottom. Anyone who could bend down enough to reach these britches wouldn’t be needing them in the first place.   My very own ample 42/30’s were up one shelf and I really had trouble bending over to check them out.  I tried to imagine some poor guy with a 50 inch waist trying to reach those bottom-most pants and   realized this would be a funny sight in a really cruel sort of way.

              This isn’t the only example I’ve run across of corpulent citizen discrimination.   The airlines do it all the time.  I can’t remember how many times I’ve been squeezed into the same row with two other big Bubba’s, shoulders and legs scrunched together so tight we were all having trouble breathing.   There were always a lot of skinny people we could have been seated next to who wouldn’t have had any trouble sharing some of their space. When I’m lucky I get the isle seat so I can spill out a little in the isle.  That is, till the flight attendant slams me in the shoulder with the drink cart.  

             It’s not like I resent this or anything, but every time I read about some airline’s financial woes it cheers me up.

              Restaurants do it too.  They’ve got these booths where the seat’s so close to the table my belly rubs the edge.  You’d think a restaurant would want fat folks as customers.  They obviously enjoy eating more than the skinny types or else they wouldn’t be so fat.

              All of this pent up resentment is helping me in my quest to lose some weight.   I want to move up a couple of shelves in the waist, but I really don’t want to get fashionably thin.  I’d like to get where gravity isn’t such a big deal.  You know, where I’m not always having to hitch up my pants.  I’d like to be able to bend over to tie my shoes and not hear people saying things like, “Wow, did you see that full moon last night?” or “Did you see that hot air balloon in the park last week?”

              I’d like to get to where my knees don’t always hurt and where I can use the treadmill on the balcony at the gym without making the folks exercising on the first floor under it scatter.  I’d like to get where all three of my daughters don’t huddle together on the south side of me when there’s a cold north wind.   I would enjoy being able to tell what color shoes I’m wearing without having to lean forward.  I want to be able to climb in and out of my sports car without grunting and I want to walk into the Chamber of Commerce without making the floors creak.  I’d like to know what it’s like to ride my bicycle down the new trail without scaring joggers and other bicyclists.   I want to get to where people can ask me “What’s up?” with out me thinking of my weight.

              I’m working on it.  I’ll keep you posted.

(This column was published in the Round Rock Leader and is available for your publication.)