Blog Love Omega Glee: The Last Socially Acceptable Form Of Bigotry? (15 March 2012)

North slides a photograph that he printed off the Internet across the table to Jake at Caffeine Eden. The photograph is grainy, an image from a security camera when F.A.T.A.S.S. ("Freedom Against Tyranny And Size Standardization"), a fat rights activist--some would say terrorist-- group kidnapped Dr. Vineet Gompers, a renowned bariatric surgeon. North points to one of the large figures in the photo and says, "Doesn't that look like Maximilian Mounds?"

Jake looks and squints, "Well he's wearing pantyhose on his head so I can't tell."

"He wore pantyhose on his head in the ring too, remember? He just didn't roll it all the way down his face then, but otherwise it looks just like him," North says, taking a sip of coffee.

"Why'd they fire him from Grapple Groove again?"

"They had a new health initiative since they were paying for health care for the wrestlers finally, and the insurance company said he had to lose weight or they wouldn't cover him, so GG just fired him."

"Isn't that against the law? That's discrimination, isn't it?"

"Well, they said they didn't have a place for him in the current storylines, but the real reason leaked out to the wrestling news websites. But since it's still socially acceptable to be prejudiced against people considered 'overweight', the courts haven't exactly been trailblazing in front of society in ending this type of discrimination anyway, so MM didn't sue because of the expensive and uphill legal battle. People use medical reasons to justify their concern over obesity, but it's really just bigotry. I don't know why society can't accept that people come in all shapes and sizes."

"Well, it's so they can sell diet products and stuff."

"After they sell all the junk food and restaurants they always advertise too. They get people buying this way," North interlocks his fingers and pushes his arms out in a circle, then pulls them back in, "And that way."

"So what do you think of these guys," Jake points at the photo of F.A.T.A.S.S.

"I'm rooting for them. They're hilarious. I liked it when they bombed the weight loss center and called before the bomb went off, and said 'Unless anyone wants to lose a lot of weight instantaneously, everyone better leave the building'."

"But isn't that sort of drastic, blowing up buildings and kidnapping surgeons? That's terrorism. In that one video they released of the surgeon, he's tied to a chair and it looks like they're starving him, and they have a Raspberry Zinger hanging from a string in front of his face but just out of reach, and he keeps trying to bite at it."

"Well, they said when all the major insurance companies start covering everyone for health insurance regardless of one's weight, they'll release him. Besides they're just following Gompers's own guidelines for body size. According to his scale of body mass index, he's overweight so they say that they're just helping him out since apparently he doesn't 'have the self-discipline to do it' himself--note the irony and sarcasm in using a line from the television advertising for his operations--I love it! Plus when people get made fun of their whole lives just for how they look, they can get pretty angry. They said in a manifesto release that though society thinks fat people are always stuffing their mouths with food, they're actually sick of society shoving diet plans, sickly-thin models, and arbitrary notions of what a human body size should be down their throats."

"Well, I don't know if I can approve of their methods, but their goals are good, and I hope Maximilian gets his job back, whether that's him in the photo or not. He was a cool wrestler," Jake says, eating a bearclaw, "So what do you think F.A.T.A.S.S. is going to do next?"

"I hope they raid a Hollywood movie set and forcefeed the actresses. Those skeletons look like they need to eat."

Blog Love Omega Glee is a novel by Wred Fright about two bloggers who fall in love while the world falls apart, which is being serialized on his blog. To start reading from the beginning or read another installment, please visit Blog Love Omega Glee Central on WredFright.Com. If you like what you've read, or you've read all of Blog Love Omega Glee and want more Fright, then please read his first novel, which is available in print and as an ebook.