I’ve never forgotten the story I read once about a nurse who went home after work to find a man in her house with a hammer, which he was presumably going to use to do her bodily harm. But he didn’t get to use it because she grabbed him and strangled him first.
He left there in a body bag, instead of leaving with the family silver under his arm.
The story’s last paragraph said that the intruder was 5 feet 9 inches tall and weighed 150 pounds. The nurse was 5’7” and weighed in at a substantial 265 pounds. The reporter said, “Apparently, her size was an advantage.”
I’ll say! It seem to me that outweighing someone who wants to crack you over the head and steal your crock pot is a real advantage in saving your life—and your stuff.
That just goes to show what I’ve always thought: being big is better than being little. I practice this truth as hard as I can every time I sit down at the table.
Most big things are better than most little things. Who wants a little diamond instead of a big one? Who wants a little bank account rather than a large one? Would you rather be the only living heir of poor Uncle Wheezer or of Elon Musk?
Nobody buys a house because it has tiny closets. Nobody takes a job because it pays the lowest wages and offers the smallest benefits.
And America’s obsession with large vehicles isn’t just about ego. It’s about self-preservation. If you’re putting down the road in a tiny little electric car, you’re a sitting duck for the 18-wheeler and the king-cab dualy on your tail.
After driving my SUV for years and feeling the protection it offers, I rode on the interstate with a friend recently in her Itty-Bitty Mobile (name of actual vehicle has been changed to protect me from lawsuit by the Itty-Bitty Co.)
The experience took my breath away. It was like flying down the road on a Frisbee, with about as much protection from the highway hissing by just inches under my feet and the passing trucks, which sucked us closer as they powered by. We had to avoid running over sticks in the road to keep from being skewered!
No. It’s not my ego I’m worried about. It’s my life. In a car, size equals safety.
Why, then, does society try to make big people feel bad about themselves? Who wants to be a 95-pound weakling when it’s obvious that size gives people, like cars, an advantage in life?
Just ask the beefy nurse who squeezed the thieving intentions out of that weasely little varmint lurking in her kitchen.
I, in fact, have enough size on me to be familiar with the many advantages of extra tonnage.
For example, I have never been thrown out of any place. It would hard to throw me anywhere. You’d have to ask me nicely to leave.
Also, I don’t have to deal with a mob of agents trying to recruit me for their modeling agencies. Just think how tedious that is for skinny little women like super model Karlie Kloss!
Unlike most of today’s Hollywood actresses, I’ll never die of anorexia or bulimia, and I don’t have to look for size 0 clothing. And doesn’t 0 mean you aren’t even there?
My preacher tells me not to lie. When I put on a sweatshirt that says “Athletic Dept. XXL,” the logo is not a lie, except for the “Athletic” part. The XXL is true.
At my size, I can force locked doors open with my shoulder shove. That comes in handy when you lock yourself out waving bye-bye to your husband, who is leaving town for a week with the only house key. Try getting back in if you weigh 98 pounds soaking wet. This was advantage #5, if you’re keeping up.
Advantage #6 is popularity. People who cook like to see me coming. So do the fastfood owners and the people at church potlucks who don’t want to take home any leftovers. In my whole life I have never said, “No, thank you, I’m not eating chicken and dumplings today.”
Advantage #7 is one I’ve been considering since I saw a movie about two people whose private plane crashed in the mountains on their way to a weight loss conference. They didn’t have anything to eat, not even any of those little airline peanuts. Those skinny-minies spent two months in the freezing wilderness without their peanuts and lost so much weight they almost died — 40 pounds each.
Shoot. I could lose 40 pounds and hardly notice that my pants zipped up faster. Besides, I don’t get on airplanes without snacks in my bag, just in case.
Finally, if there’s a 95-pound weakling lurking in my house when I get home, waiting to pummel me with a hammer, he’d better run while he can.
I’ve just had a double cheeseburger and a cinnamon roll, and I think I can take him.
