Fat Girl TriFecta

Hold on to your socks; I'm fixin' to let loose with a major rant, and if you have not realized it by now, the one thing this good ol' girl is good at...it's pitching a full-fledged fit. Let me begin by stating, I'm a big girl...always have been...always will be. There is a picture of me...somewhere…when I was about three years old that was taken out in the yard next to my mother’s prize rosebush. It was in color, which we take for granted now, but “back in the day,” color photos were not all that common.

Anyway, there I was...this long legged, willowy blonde child, running through the yard, chasing something…probably one of my brothers. Trust me, willowy didn’t last. By the time I was five, I was a chubby little girl with blah, indistinctive, dishwater brown hair. My explanation: aliens swooped down from the sky…snatched the cute blonde child...and left me in her place. I have absolutely no recollection whatsoever of ever being blonde, cute, or skinny.

Weight has been an issue my entire life. Believe me, I’ve tried everything…including stomach stapling surgery. Nothing works. About ten years ago, I finally reconciled myself to the fact that this is a battle I’m never, EVER going to win. I try to eat healthy things and, contrary to what I look like, I do not eat 24 hours a day, seven days a week. It’s just I realized…skinny ain’t ever gonna happen for me. Well, not in this life anyway.

Now, to the reasons for this post. (Sorry, it took me a while to get here.)

Reason #1: Last week on “Boston Legal,” William Shatner’s character, Denny Crane, fired an employee because she was...fat. That was it...no other reason than she was f-a-t. I don’t know if you watch this show, but I have watched it from the beginning, so I am well-acquainted with the quirky, push the envelope, no holds barred style the show embraces, so I guess I should not have been surprised all that much that they finally got around to trashing us fat folks. (Why not? We're easy targets.) The reason he gave for firing her, besides the fact that she was fat, was because other people tend to gain weight if they’re around fat people, and he didn’t want other staff members getting fat. The employee, of course, sued the firm.

The storyline carried over to this week with the other star of the show, James Spader, who plays attorney Alan Shore, getting involved as Denny Crane’s attorney. Now, since Alan’s claim to fame is that he has never lost a case – at least since coming to this law firm – I had already pretty much deduced what was going to happen, which was...the fat chick was going to get screwed, and she did. The irony was, the judge who heard the complaint was a morbidly obese woman, who Denny Crane described as “looking like an elephant” as she laboriously made her way from her chambers to her chair behind the bench.

As Alan pled his case, he basically said that more employers should take a hard line with fat employees and make them go on diets and exercise. I don’t remember the entire diatribe because I was so incensed by this time, I was afraid I was going to throw an aneurysm. He also concurred with the supposition that "normal-sized" people become fat by associating with fat people. Now, maybe that theory is true, but then shouldn’t the reverse work as well; i.e., fat people can become thin by hanging out with skinny folks.

When the show ended, I emailed ABC about “Boston Legal” – like it will matter – and told them that this episode “jumped the shark” for me, and I would no longer be watching their show. I also told them that, if this was the best programming they could muster, then perhaps it would be better if their writers remained on strike. I know. No one will ever read it, or give a tinker’s damn. It won’t, in fact, make any difference whatsoever, but it sure felt good writing it.

Reason #2: Last night on “Criminal Minds,” they highlighted one of my favorite characters, Penelope Garcia. Garcia is the computer geek who tracks down all the pertinent info for the FBI’s Behavioral Analysis Unit. She is quirky and funny and – yes – is the resident “fat chick” on the show. In last night’s episode, Garcia stopped off at her usual coffee shop on her way into the office, and she met a guy…a cute guy. She helped him solve some problems he was having with his laptop, they chatted, he asked for her number, and later he called and asked her out on a date.

The heart of the show revolved around the BAU team’s search for, and eventual capture of, a cannibalistic serial killer. (Whatever happened to shows like “Lassie” and “Leave It To Beaver?”) I was afraid to turn out the lights and go to bed when the show was over. But it ended with the cute guy walking Garcia to her doorstep following their date. He flirted with her a bit, acted like he was going to kiss her, walked away, and then turned back to her and - with this whimsical look on his face - he told her he wanted to do something he had been thinking about all evening. Garcia got this little curious, expectant smile on her face. Obviously, she thought he was going to kiss her, but instead, he pulled out a gun... and shot her!

Now I have to wait until next week to see what happens – I should live so long – because, of course, I could not tell from the previews if she lives or dies. I have to admit, I’m more than a little intrigued as to where the writers are going with this. Is the “cute guy” perhaps a serial killer who aspires to systematically rid the world of all the fat chicks? Just my luck.

Reason #3: I got home this evening after work and turned on the USA Network because I knew they were running a LOCI marathon. The episode that was playing just happened to be “Eosphoros.” The one where the chubby girl, April, helps kidnap her atheist grandmother for ransom, but things go awry and grandma ends up dead. At the end, when it is revealed to the hapless April that her massage therapist "boyfriend" - Mitch, the smarmy creep – is, in fact, the murderer, she says to him, “I…I thought you loved me.” Mitch responds by giving her this disgusting look and says to the detectives, “Do you believe this chick?" Then to April, he says, "Have you ever looked at yourself?"

So, that was the proverbial “straw” that broke BobbyG’s back. I wanted to scream! Instead, I sat right down and composed this entirely too long, passion-filled, homage to the plight of all the chubby girls everywhere.

Let me conclude by saying, it is not my intent to offend anyone with this entry. I mean, if you’re lucky enough to be thin…God love ya. But as a fatty, I’ve had enough! I am – pardon the pun – “fed-up” with being told by the media, by so-called society, by the bleepin’ universe in general that only thin, pretty people are worthy, or have value, or are capable of making a viable, productive contribution to this world. It makes me want to hit something…somebody…really, REALLY hard. It makes me want to not get out of bed in the morning.