Diet Life.

So a fellow waddles in to my store the other evening--and I mean waddles. He's probably got a circumferance challenging his height. To make the spectacle more appealing, he's wearing hospital scrubs. I'm typically cordial, because, even though I'm a condescending asshole, I am religiously polite to all those who have yet to offend me .

"Good evening, my friend, how is your Friday?"

"I'm tired," he replies, clearly from the natural exhaustion of hauling 300 lbs of behavioral negligence around through a work shift. His tone is gentle, though, so I am compelled to be nice.

Tubby retrieves beer from the right end (where six and twelve packs are procured, rather than the 22's and 40's) and then heads to the 20oz soda cooler. He proceeds to the register with a six of Bud Light and a PVC bottle of Diet Coke in tow.

"I also need a pack of Winston Lights in a box," Tubby proclaims, but again, in a tone so much more civilized than my Philly-blunt demanding regulars that I can't much begrudge his request. But I am distraught, and full of an amalgamation of disdain and pity.

Tubby weighs what he weighs, risking hypertension, diabetes, heart disease, coronary failure, and likely premature death, all because he's incredibly fat. And yet somewhere along the line, he's been, willingly or not, duped into the proposition that drinking light beer and diet soda, and smoking light cigarettes will somehow redeem his sedentary lifestyle and grotesque exhorbitancies in terms of personal habit. He's going to die young in a rich country, and hasn't even the good sense to see it coming. It's a common scenario in which Americans equate behaviors which are not specifically harmful with actual healthy living, as if drinking Diet Coke and Bud Light mystically equates to jogging or avoiding saturated fat.

"Will there be anything else for you, sir?"

"Nah."

"That will be $10.23,'' I convey, as always seperating my work voice from my clandestine inner commentary. Tubby pulls out a ten, and then scrounges about his scrubs for the requisite coinage.

He knows when to just do enough, I think. Perhaps there's still hope for him.