Vorster: It’s Not My Fault…

By Peter J. Vorster II || I see it all the time, the fat guy in front of me ordering a double bull burger with cheese, apple pie, a four-pound bag of fries and a diet beverage …

Typing carefully as I can almost feel the angry lawyers’ hot breath against my neck, lathered in a perpetual rage against those who use their client’s brands in a way that could remotely be associated with anything they might not want to be associated with.

Yes, I admit, when I do opt for fast food, and let’s be honest, that deep fried crack is good every once in a while, I also order the diet beverage.

I just don’t try and make some sort of yin and yang, karmic balancing rationale for doing so. I just like the taste of the diet drinks. I really do wish they had some super secret, calorie absorbing properties buried in those delightful bubbles, but the fact is, for the fat guy ordering it, it simply functions as suckhole lubricant to ensure the uninterrupted delivery of mass quantities to his upper scat processor.

I’m not really going on a diatribe against the fat guy ordering eight pounds of flavored grease, because I’m there, I like that dance.

What gets to me though is that when he is made to get off a plane because his ass can’t be safely belted into the seat (pausing here to wonder if one could really add to the sheer terror of a mid flight emergency … and then imagining a four hundred pound man flying through coach at terminal velocity wrapped in all the oxygen masks he’s torn through), or the paramedics having to remove his door frame to get him to the hospital, or my health costs going up because the hospital is having to invest in all new beds and toilets to accommodate the larger (and much more common) patients, or all the shrimp is eaten from the all you can eat seafood buffet … then I’m made to feel bad about it by the media and all the bleeding hearts out there who make a living out of blaming society and whatever secret foundation that goes around putting highly addictive chemicals into the friar oil.

Yes folks, it’s our fault.

We are to blame for the fact that we are the fattest country in the world – for the fact that some people just don’t know what’s not healthy for them and their ignorance leads to them being fat and being a gross and unnecessary burden on society. Yep, much like my revulsion for those who pleaded ignorance when they were told smoking was bad for them, I similarly hold in the utmost contempt those who pound every possible incarnation of highly processed wheat and confectionary sugar into their whimpering cake holes while saying that they just don’t understand why they’re so fat and why they’ve been made to eat like this.

It really isn’t rocket science folks, you don’t need multiple blackboards to solve the riddle because there’s no Good Will Hunting type math going on here … just the basic notion of personal responsibility (which this country has obviously forgotten).

I don’t have to be a nutritionist to know that pouring the crumbs from the bottom of the deep fat friar into my mouth is probably not healthy.
I don’t have to know that if I burn through a dozen doughnuts for breakfast and a box of sugar me dead’s for a snack between meals, I’m probably not doing anything past my tongue much of a favor. But the fact is that as a society we’ve allowed this silliness to creep in.

We have this idea that as a group we are accountable for the actions of the individual and that as individuals we’re devoid of responsibility because we can place the blame on the group – an idea which would have had members of our grandparents’ generation slapping us in the face while they laughed at our stupidity.

No, you and you alone are the responsible party for your actions. So quit crying about how society beams out all these subliminal messages in the advertisements that force you to go out and, zombie-like, eat until your jeans are testing the laws of physics.

Don’t make excuses because you have no self control and you can’t bear to take the blame for the fact that the waist lines in your pants have enough elastic to put you well into your own bungee operation.

Don’t blame the society, or the companies or the pressures of your job or your marriage.  Own the fact that you are the sole person responsible for what goes into your trap.

Don’t get me wrong folks, I love me some two a.m. Waffle House. I’m just saying; when you’re done with that, when you’ve successfully added to your cholesterol count, go run it off or stairmaster it away.  Or don’t.  I really don’t care.  But just take responsibility for it and don’t make it an issue I’ve got to foot the bill for in any way and we’ll be just fine.

Oh, and don’t sit next to me on the plane… I really don’t like the fat rolls that squeeze out from under the arm rest into the area that I’ve paid to sit in.

Now by all means … go cry into your double whiny burger and fries.

About the author: Peter J. Vorster II is a charming, humble, opinionated, open minded, hard core conservative, loving father, devoted husband (non Sanfordian), excellent friend, patriot and proud Southerner.