Take a Load Off, Fanny

I think it's totally reasonable to partially close off a major transportation chokepoint in one of the largest metropolitan areas in the history of the world in order to send a message to a political rival who had recently disappointed you. You have to keep things like this in perspective. Look, George W. Bush invaded a whole country and thus became directly and indirectly responsible for the death and dismemberment of tens of thousands--possibly hundreds of thousand--of real human people. And some of them were even Americans! Why? Because there was a plot at one time to harm his father. And the political people in charge of that country at the time were likely involved in said plot.

So let's look at the scale: one man's unharmed but totally threatened dad warrants the deaths of somewhere near 200,000 people. But this is the president of the United States.

Then one mayor of somewhere refuses to openly endorse you in your reelection bid, and there's bad traffic for a little while. Total death toll? Just one, but be fair, it's a soft one. The dead person's family said it was OK. Note please that this was not a plot by the mayor of Fort Lee to deny Chris Christie his endorsement, no, this was an actual realized action, a fait accompli executed with the ruthless cunning and efficiency one has come to expect from people who are not Iraqis.

Note also that this was the governor of New Jersey, an executive position in one of the most populous states in the union, known for its invaluable contribution to the functioning of the critical New York economy by providing it with a place to bury shit it needs to get rid of, like mob snitches and plutonium-239. If the president gets to kill people in six figures as a show of intimidation and cold vengeance, a state governor only killing one person seems like an act of remarkable restraint. That's more of a lone-U.S.-congressperson-representing-a-mountain-west-state level. I don't know that one dead person even qualifies as "wreaking." If I had to give it a verb, I'd probably have to make one up, like "schlumpfing."

Look at it that way, and Chris Christie is a champion. And I'm saying this because I honestly believe it, not because I've gained 10-15 pounds in the last 4 to 6 months and Christie is the thin end of the wedge... well OK, he's part of the wedge that's going to lead us into a new social paradise of Fat Acceptance.

When you think about it, we've fallen a long way. Given our collective increased mass but also the larger surface area leading to greater wind resistance, we've probably fallen at about the same speed, but look: right here in Riverside, where I live, we have one fancy-schmancy hotel that some famous people have visited. In it exists one special-made oversized chair to accommodate the visiting President William Howard Taft, a notable big'un. We shame and ostracize the pudgy and soft now, exacerbated by the pervasive aesthetic lie of Photoshop, but man, being fat used to mean custom hand-made furniture. There have never been more fat people, and yet we are persecuted by movie critics and national airlines instead of being celebrated and catered to. Hopefully with some kind of cakes.

Now Chris Christie has to face persecution by prosecution, which is, like, the worst kind. Well, after burning at the stake. Or exile to Siberia. Or lynching. Or maybe a pogrom.

OK, it's not really all that high up there on types of persecutions. It's inconvenient and it also makes it a lot harder to eventually one day become president. But who are we kidding? The skinny bitches weren't going to let that happen anyway.

We're going to have to do it without our champion. I'll be out there fighting the good fight with you. You know, eventually. To be honest, I still look and feel OK. If I'm going to blend in with the heavy set, I've got some gaining to do. But there's no doubt I'm on the right trajectory. I feel like I'll be taken more seriously the bigger I get. Or at least I'll be increasing my personal gravity.