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My Weight Gain Secrets … Revealed!
So
me guys talk about girls when they drink. Some guys talk about sports. Some guys just sit in the corner, crying in their martini, softly humming the theme from Love Story, and wondering where it all went wrong. Or maybe that’s just me. Well, me and Rob.
But not Neil deGrasse Tyson. If you get a few beers in Neil deGrasse Tyson he turns into a real theoretical physics bore. He goes on and on about how the Rankine scale is better than Kelvin and just how flipping wrong it is that the Microsoft Word spell checker knows “Ludwig Boltzmann,” but apparently has never heard of Rudolf Clausius, despite Clausius being essentially the father of our modern concept of entropy. When Neil deGrasse Tyson gets properly blotto, he never shuts up about this stuff; it’s a big part of why Neil and I stopped hanging out.
But before I sat him down with a pot of black coffee and explained to him that I couldn’t be his friend anymore, that he would have to replace my dog, and that my five-year old daughter isn’t allowed to date married men and it has nothing to do with his race, Neil told me something that would change my life forever.
He said, “Garret, my friend, I’m a famous science guy. And as a famous science guy, I feel it is my duty to tell you that the laws of the universe require some people to be big fat pigs and I think it’s really brave that you’re willing to risk your life so other people can be healthy. It’s just the law of conservation of mass, Garret. It can be neither created nor destroyed. If some fatso gets thin, then some thin guy somewhere gotta get fat. It’s a natural process. Our whole physics depends on it. If you eat a big mess of cauliflower and someone else in China or somewhere doesn’t eat a Twinkie, it’s like calling Einstein stupid to his face. To his face!“
Then he passed out. But I got the message. And I’ve been preaching that message to anyone who would listen ever since. So you’ll all have to excuse me if my properly-formed, scientifically-enlightened conscience requires me to say what all of you right-thinking people out there know, but none of you has the courage to say out-loud:
Jon Gabriel is a stone killer.
Jon lost 38 pounds. But Dr. deGrasse Tyson and I ask you, Ricochet, who gained it? We’re all supposed to clap for Jon because he can fit into his skinny jeans, but has anyone stopped to consider how Jon’s selfish weight loss affects others? We all love Jon Gabriel and we’re happy that he’s happy, but somewhere, some teenage girl is tugging furiously at her pants, desperate for them to button, but they’re never going to button. They’re not going to button because Jon Gabriel just had to be thin and it’s that poor girl the universe chose to punish for his crimes.
Or maybe it’s your grandmother with heart trouble or your neighbor with diabetes. Maybe it’s some poor bastard with sleep apnea for whom those 38 pounds on his chest every night mean the difference between a full breath of life-sustaining air and slowly strangling to death in his sleep.
But Jon doesn’t care, does he? He’s actually proud of what he has done to these people! And now he’s handing out tips for how you, too, can murder another human being to indulge your twisted vanity.
Well I won’t stand for it. You might be willing to sit by and do nothing in the face of manifest injustice, but not me. I’m going to stand up for the oppressed. I’m going to live the ideals taught to me as an eager student in the Trans-American Studies department at Hamilton College. I’m going to defend Jon’s voiceless victims, even at great risk to my own health.
I’m going on an anti-hunger strike. I am going to eat pie. I am going to eat cookies. I am going to deep-fry pats of creamy, delicious butter, douse them in molten chocolate, and wash them down with a big frothy milkshake, and I’m going to do it every day until either I die of heart failure or Jon Gabriel agrees to put back on those 38 pounds.
I’m gonna do it for that girl with the pants that don’t fit. I’m gonna do it for your grandma with the heart trouble and your neighbor with the diabetes. I’m gonna do it for that guy who can’t breathe. I’m gonna do it for you. I’m gonna do it for America. I’m gonna eat and eat until you, the good people of Ricochet, shame that monster, Jon Gabriel, back into those extra-large sweat pants.
Either Jon gets fat or Garret Hobart dies. It’s up to you, Ricochet.
Now pass the gravy.
In all seriousness, congratulations, Jon. Losing 38 pounds is an impressive accomplishment. I’m proud to say I’ve lost about that much weight every year for the last decade. The problem is, I just put it all right back on after a few months of doughnuts and beer, then have to start the diet again when I run out of pants.
I ran out of pants over the weekend. Diet started on Monday. This time, I’m either going to keep the weight off or I’m going to just give up and buy bigger pants.
Published in Humor
My, my, my. You, sir, are an example for all of us.
Yes, you all live in my shadow. My massive, massive shadow.
I hope to one day hang out with you. Not because I like you but because you’d make me look thin.
Blubber at rest tends to stay at rest. Blubber in motion tends to stay in motion until it finds another lazy schlub to latch onto.
This is the best thing I’ve read on Ricochet in a long, long time.
Personally, I have been fighting for the health of others just as you describe for many years now. I admit, though, to lacking the courage of my convictions awhile back when, in a moment of indefensible cowardice, we bought an elliptical machine. I am so shamed by your bravery I am going to list in on Craigs List post haste. You are doing god’s work Garret. Good on ya!
Anyone for a pizza run? Or shall we just call out and have someone else do the running?
Delivery is the brave thing to do, surely.
So, pretty much your theory of mass body mass mirrors the liberal understanding of wealth.
Yep, it’s a zero-sum weight gain.
Thin, but poorly lit.
I think I’m supposed to say I do it for the little people.
Not my theory, Paul. Drunk Neil deGrasse Tyson’s theory.
Sorry about your dog, BTW.
You’re a saint. A saint!
First off, in a just universe, this post would get on the Main Feed pronto.
Second, per Garret’s “massive, massive shadow”: Knowing Ricochet this is probably not a new story to many, but apparently G.K. Chesterton once found himself, as World War I was raging, criticized by a lady acquaintance demanding to know why he wasn’t “out at the front” — to which Chesterton replied that if the lady were to view him in profile, she would immediately see that he most certainly was.
Hahahaha Garrett Hobart, unsung and little known Vice President! “Massive, massive shadow” hahaha!
Massive hero on the Main Feed. Garret, your heroism is now officially sung.
Thanks for a wonderfully funny post, Garrett!
People who’ve known me a long time often ask me how I manage to keep the weight on; I tell them, it takes thoughtful planning, and eating just the right fattening foods. And you must do it every day — never skip a day. That’s the key.
LOL! Fabulous. Last couple of weeks I’ve gained a few pounds. Haven’t been making it to the gym and beer, wine, ice cream, pumpkin pie, and Halloween candy have been too good to pass up.
Cheers. ;)
Competing with The Onion!
This is great. For all us fat people our there we now can exuse our rotundess as a charitable act.
By all means delivery, and don’t forget to say that if on the way to deliver the pizza that there will be an even bigger tip if a stop is made at a liquor store and the pizza arrives with two cases of beer. Now would someone please hand me the remote so I can get back to the game.
Bravo! It seems you have too much (creative) time on your hands.
Which brings me to an important point, along the same vein: Haven’t you realized that you’re over-consuming creative juices? Somewhere, someone who wants to write something is left wanting, looking in vain for the right words or plot twist to complete a best seller. For one example, it could result in Rob not getting a contract for his latest proposal, requiring him to double down on his requests for us to buy mattresses, razor blades and email software. Don’t you realize how selfish this is? And how much podcast time is being wasted? ;-)
Could be a new phrase,
“Dude, don’t Hobart the talent!”
I find that when I’m trying to remember just which fattening foods to eat to stay on my daily regimen, it’s helpful to consult this early version of the USDA Food Pyramid:
Ohh, for the days of the old USDA Pie Ziggurat! Simpler times, simpler times ….
You know, Tedley, you’re absolutely right. Each word is an act of violence against some poor, innocent writer somewhere who will have to switch from cocaine to amphetamines if he can’t find a way to sell his freelance piece on the spiritual lives of llama ranchers in Patagonia.
Good bye, Ricochet! Good bye, cruel, wordless world!
Wait, you just have to eat your words…baked into a cake. A high-fat, high-caloric cake. That destroys the used words to be freed up for other writers and converts them to useful, blessed weight to save the world.
How much beer would have to be consumed for Mr. Tyson to be able to explain the Theory of Relativity With Respect to Grocery Store Que Times, in which all other lines move faster than yours, leaving you to stare longingly at the cashier stretching out to infinity like an Orson Wells deep focus fade shot? Two or three? Pale Ale or Stout?