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Friday Smile (on Thursday)

I'm having one of those Thursdays that requires an early Friday Smile. This afternoon, I was reviewing some notes in an old book I have about developing different written voices (lame to most, I'm sure, but I *love* this book). There's a sample essay in there that makes me giggle every single time I read it. I picked a few of my favourite parts - and I share them with you now for your Thursday afternoon enjoyment.

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Thin people come in all personalities, most of them menacing. You've got your "together" thin person, your mechanical thin person, your condescending thin person, your tsk-tsk thin person, your efficiency-expert thin person. All of them are dangerous.

In the first place, thin people aren't fun. They don't know how to goof off - at least in the best, fat sense of the word. They've always got to be adoing. Give them a coffee break, and they'll jog around the block. Supply them with a quiet evening at home, and they'll fix the screen door and lick S&H green stamps. They say things like "there aren't enough hours in the day." Fat people never say that. Fat people think the day is too damn long already.

Thin people make me tired. They've got speedy little metabolisms that cause them to bustle briskly. They're forever rubbing their bony little hands together and eyeing new problems to "tackle." I like to surround myself with sluggish, insert, easygoing fat people, the kind who believe that if you clean it up today, it'll just get dirty again tomorrow.

Thin people turn surly, mean and hard at a young age because they never learned the value of a hot-fudge sundae for easing tension.

"If you consume more calories than you burn," says one of my thin friends, "you'll gain weight. It's that simple." Fat people always grin when they hear statements like that. They know better.

Fat people know all about the mystery of life. They are the ones acquainted with the night, with luck, with fate, with playing it by ear. One thin person I know once suggested that we arrange all the parts of a jigsaw puzzle into groups according to size, shape and color. He figured this would cut the time needed to complete the puzzle by at least 50 per cent. I said I wouldn't do it. One, I like to muddle through. Two, what good wold it do to finish early? Three, the jigsaw puzzle isn't the important thing. The important thing is the fun of four people (one thin person included) sitting around a card table, working a jigsaw puzzle. My thin friend had no use for my list. Instead of joining us, he went outside and mulched the boxwoods. The three remaining fat people finished the puzzle and made chocolate, double-fudged brownies to celebrate.

- Suzanne Britt, 'That Lean and Hungry Look'

Labels: Friday Smile, Stuff I Read

posted by Lindsay @ 4:53 PM