attack of the blobs

previous posts have been whiny bitch-fests about the dire quality-time i spend on the t. the personal equivalent of chinese toy-factory rejects that get shipped gratis, chipped lead paint and all, to botswana. all those hours, all week, i'm exposed to an excess of humanity, both in their excesses and excessiveness. the i-pod so loud i can hear the throbbing spanish 5 seats away, the backpack that's bigger than a marine's in kandahar immobile in front of both opening doors, the surreal slo-mo of doped out oxy dudes, the retarded couple's slap fight, the kids released from the confines of school carrying on like crazies, the puking, the broken arms...

but this one is about the bigguns.

previously i wrote about the incredible traveling breakfast buffet girl. in 30 minutes she consumed 3 distinct masses of mess from dunkins', each with its own heavy sticky schmear. it was an amazing feat of consumption. well, i saw her again this week, on the platform. if she hadn't been stuffing her face, i'm not convinced i'd have recognized her. but she was gnawing at something in the brown dd bag. i took the next train, so only got the preview of her lunch-time performance.

yesterday, not one, not two, but THREE parties who initially insisted on sitting in a booth at the restaurant subsequently asked to move, "because the booth was too small." i'd initially headed towards tables, seeing their girth. i watched with embarrassment while they tried wedging themselves in and even their sweat couldn't grease 'em up enough.

last night i watched (well, out of the corner of my eye) 2 people who took up 4 seats on the t. shoelaces undone because their feet were so fat. gender utterly uncertain because they were just so big. incredibly obese women can become hirsute, and really porky guys just get so soft and rolly, you're not sure they have a package down there. initially, i thought they were siblings, but then disturbing strokes of affection started happening and i got squicked. face piercings, neck tattoos, ear stretchers... um, you hate your appearance how much?

this morning, 2 girls (pink coats...) sat one behind the other, but each took up both seats. no way even nicole ritchie at her most bulimic matchstickiness could have perched on the other seat. i marveled at how they were stuffed in their puffy coats. they were extra loud, but both had very pretty eyes. one had an elaborate face tattoo, snaking down into her coat. they both had lots of face jewelry.

not long ago, i saw video of a girl down south who was about 10 and so fat she had to crab and scutter around the house. too fat to get on the schoolbus or in the car, she weighed close to 400 pounds and hadn't left the house for months. a dear friend sent me the article on the 8-month old chinese baby who weighs nearly 100 pounds. he can't crawl or turn himself over. their parents keep feeding them and just remain amazed at their ever-growing appetites.

the upsurge of the obese and their cousin the super-obese is no news. hell, there are web-sites that sell leg straps to pull your thick unmanageable thigh out of your car and brushes to scrub away the unknown from between your folds. what's fascinated me these last few encounters is how they become so big their gender is rendered naught. is that why they grow themselves so much? they manifest their self-loathing to the degree that nobody, literally, can get close?

why is there no "off" switch? i know food is cheaper, relatively, than at any time in our history on the planet. i know bad calories are cheaper than good calories. in other words, you can get full on big macs way before you get full on the dollar-equivalent of carrots. but when was that zeitgeist moment when it became ok to be enormous? in my school we had 2 girls and 1 boy like that. now i see them pile on the train in the afternoon and i wonder if they all have their insulin pens?

when i become empress of the universe, i will atomize all the corn fields -- presto-chango, no more hfcs. ok, not all of 'em, cuz i'll still want corn on the cob, but nearly all of them and that good eating corn is a different breed anyway.

yesterday i read that the wic vouchers mothers receive have a monthly allowance of $6 for fresh fruits or vegetables. you can buy boxed pudding or a supermarket cake with that gritty waxy frosting (how do they make something that should be smooth seem like it has mica in it?) and packed in a plastic dome or shrink-wrapped baloney, but precious few apples and broccoli.

so i'll end this on another giant wtf, and a bit less surprise at the 400-pound kids of color i keep seeing.