God, give me the strength to get through the buffet line.
He'd heard the jokes. What was once a murmur caught on occasion from a teenage brat or a paranoid twisting of the words of a passerby had become an all out soapbox goon point and giggle. When did it start?
High school? Nah, it couldn't have been high school. There wasn't even time for gorging in between all the extracirriculars. He'd hop and skip between the key club, track practice, and Spanish club with nary a thought to cream puff delicacies or deep fried wonder junk. Adonis himself circa 1996.
Graduation couldn't come fast enough. For the last time ever on the first day of the rest of his life until the last day of summer to the first day of his first semester, the new first day of the rest of his post-summer life, he would see all of the youthful contemporaries he'd come to know and love through the last four years. He would later describe it in a livejournal post as the "most emotional time of my life." He would graduate as more than just valedictorian... he was the first student ever to achieve a 9.4GPA - a whole 4.4 points higher than anyone else in the history of fictional writings.
In just three months, he would be going to University of Nasa, the first interstellar college. The future was bright... but he couldn't afford shades. With three months to kill and the need for some serious dough for some even more serious shades, he seriously need to seek employment. He thought hard. Who was hiring geniuses on a seasonal basis? He thought so damn hard that he popped a blood vessel in his left eye. Who was hiring geniuses on a seasonal basis that looked like 28 Day Later extras?
He put together a resume and mailed it out to all the hot companies. One to Fen-Phen, one to ValuJet, one to RAMBUS, and one to Enron. With his name out to all of the major players, he was sure someone would appreciate his reddened eye to detail. With no response in two hours, he decided he ought to do the responsible thing... apply to Old Country Buffet in person.
There it was, the sign was within sight! He had never been but heard splendid things from his grandparents and the girls on the flag line. Their vivid descriptions painted a king's banquet with flavors stretching to every corner of the world. He'd a tongue for the divine and if this epicurean delight was even half as brilliant as described, he'd leave with an encyclopedic knowledge of the bon vivant!
The door stood before him. It was a stock wooden door with a heavy gloss. Usually reserved for homes constructed during the late 70's, he could only assume the choice was not one based in aesthetics but one of comfort; to make one feel at home. Growing up in a condo himself, he had a flat, white door completely unadorned... but he understood. He stepped on the pressure sensitive rubberized mat that would, like a doorman to the finest of restaurants, allow him access to the palate pleasing selections beyond.
Nothing happened.
Confused, he stepped aside, paused, and stepped back on. Nothing! He leaned over to double check the sternly labeled "HOURS OF OPERATION" sign. They were most definitely open at 1:13 PM on a Saturday. He thought hard to himself but not TOO hard. He'd learned his lesson about that! Was he not the King Arthur to this conosseuirs' stone? Glancing both ways to guarantee the presence of no onlookers, he began furiously stomping on the mat. *thunk!* The sound of a car door!
He quickly adopted a casual air about himself and started towards his car. Passing a rather rotund couple on his cunning trip, he began counting in his head. One... two... three... and FOUR! He quickly turned! The couple, the larger one holding a cane and the shorter one on a motorized scooter, had only distanced themselves by five or six feet. They didn't seem to notice his alarming behavior so he continued watching as they neared his rubberized foe. As the first wheel of the woman's electrical tricycle rolled onto the mat in conjunction with the larger man's cane - the ugly door opened. His eyes bulged! He no longer cared about his pride. If he knew anything, he knew he would not let an opportunity like this escape him. A meet gun exploded in his mind commencing his dash towards the automated door. He barreled past the mentally slow couple.
Eyes bright with wonder, he stopped to take it all in... and then he just stopped entirely. This place was a shit hole! A Muzak version of "Friends in Low Places" played.
"Just one er yew gawt anuhtha awhn tha way?"
"Uhhh."
"Follah me."
He sat. Given no instructions, he waited for five minutes for a waitress.He felt hopelessly deflated by the lackluster foyer and dining area. Other patrons seemed to have figured the system out. He watched them slide off of the naugahyde bench and head towards the center of the room. He rose slowly and headed towards the growing crowd. Passing a table of six in prayer, he only caught one line: "God bless us and this $5 off coupon included in this weeks ValuPak. It means a lot to Chuck and me to..." Continuing on, he joined the rest in a line to which he could see no end.
Just a matter of time now. He felt out of place. Everyone was nearly triple his weight. "How funny," he thought to himself, "I really do feel like I'm in a cattle line." His thoughts were given even more credence as some of the cows moved out from in front of him and off to the left and right. The food! It was stored in troughs! Now, he'd been to gimmicky restaurants before. He'd made his own burger at Fuddruckers, eaten whole sticks of butter at the Cracker Barrel, and even paid to grow his own salad at the trendy New York nightspot, "Grass."
"Do I trust the opinion of my grandparents and the girls of the flag line?" In a flash, a rush of previous disagreements all processed at once. Reality returned. His mouth was agape, his face contorted in disgust... an empty plate lay below him and 30 feet of troughs beyond.
"Hurry it up. Jesus Christ Almighty."
"What's the hold up, skinny?"
"CHEESEBURGER!"
The pumping of fists and shouting voices startled him and wore at his defenses. He quickly clutched the plate and darted right towards certain sanctuary... the salad bar! Satan snickered. No such solace would be found, not here. The Old Country Buffet had found a way to obliterate the redemption often found in a plate of greens. Iceberg lettuce, thousand island dressing; toppings that included bacon, chocolate, and cheeseballs. The battle was lost. He joined the fray.
When the first spatula of meatloaf slapped against his plate, he lost all self control. A once empty plate was fast moving towards a meal for four... five! Two fist sized meatballs dove into a pool of butter located in the mountainous region of instant mashed potatoes. A torrent of sour cream quickly rained down on top of that providing snowcaps of cardiac arresting proportions. Fried chicken slathered in sausage gravy smashed between two buttered pieces of Texas toast. A mad scientist was at work destroying the previous years' hard exercise and heavily regimented diet. As a constant stream of chocolate sauce spewed forth towards a stack of blueberry cornbread, it was realized that there no boundaries left to cross.
He had walked into the establishment in the bright of the afternoon, a fit teen eager for the promised success of the coming months. This was six hours ago. Rationale, sanity, and self-control were all abandoned after the first of many whirlwind blitzes through the rows of the breaded, the buttered, and the fried. He was carted away from the buffet... comatose. Our hero as we had known him had died.
Three months later, crusty eyes opened up. This room was foreign to him. White walled... cold... clinical. What was this? This was a hospital! Why was this a hospital? Well, he thought, it was built that way but why was he IN a hospital?? He could not move his arms though he felt no restraints. What was pinning his arms down? Gritting his teeth, he managed to sit upright while straining every muscle in his body. Looking down, he didn't realize what he saw. This blob beneath him... it was his body. The unmovable arms, the bulging legs... this was our hero! Shock overtook and threw him right back into his indefinite slumber.
Doctors would later call it a triumph in the understanding of psychological and physiological distresses. How could it happen to one man? In one day? To go from a fit 170lbs and blimp well past the 600lb? Unheard of! When he'd finally awoken, he weighed in at 595. The doctors recounted his trip to the buffet based on eye witness accounts. He was shocked by the details. He was informed that he'd missed the target date for his shuttle deployment. He'd also missed the target weight! He was ineligible for the program based on his abnormal size. No human above 230lbs has even been sent into space. Sadness filled our hero. The jobs he'd applied for? All three companies fell victim to massive lawsuits during his slumber.
Months passed with minor weight loss. He was able to walk for short periods at his 572lb weight. He became a rather sedentary individual spending most of his time lying around at home dousing the space between his rolls of flab with talcum powder. His mailbox would fill with hate mail and fan mail... both discarded upon arrival. With no idea what to do with himself, he didn't have many other options but to lay there. FedEx had delivered one curious overnighted letter that begged his attention.
Reading its contents brought a slanted smile to his face. It was from Old Country Buffet. The company thought they could spin his nightmares into some tale of irresistibly good food. Just as Subway had recently began playing the first of what would be many Jared ads, Old Country Buffet extolled the virtues of being an absolute fat fuck. What those virtues were, they never bothered with but it had something to do with a $5 off coupon.
---------------
I couldn't possibly tell you why I began writing this garbage or why I bothered finishing it. If you made it this far, shame on you.
High school? Nah, it couldn't have been high school. There wasn't even time for gorging in between all the extracirriculars. He'd hop and skip between the key club, track practice, and Spanish club with nary a thought to cream puff delicacies or deep fried wonder junk. Adonis himself circa 1996.
Graduation couldn't come fast enough. For the last time ever on the first day of the rest of his life until the last day of summer to the first day of his first semester, the new first day of the rest of his post-summer life, he would see all of the youthful contemporaries he'd come to know and love through the last four years. He would later describe it in a livejournal post as the "most emotional time of my life." He would graduate as more than just valedictorian... he was the first student ever to achieve a 9.4GPA - a whole 4.4 points higher than anyone else in the history of fictional writings.
In just three months, he would be going to University of Nasa, the first interstellar college. The future was bright... but he couldn't afford shades. With three months to kill and the need for some serious dough for some even more serious shades, he seriously need to seek employment. He thought hard. Who was hiring geniuses on a seasonal basis? He thought so damn hard that he popped a blood vessel in his left eye. Who was hiring geniuses on a seasonal basis that looked like 28 Day Later extras?
He put together a resume and mailed it out to all the hot companies. One to Fen-Phen, one to ValuJet, one to RAMBUS, and one to Enron. With his name out to all of the major players, he was sure someone would appreciate his reddened eye to detail. With no response in two hours, he decided he ought to do the responsible thing... apply to Old Country Buffet in person.
There it was, the sign was within sight! He had never been but heard splendid things from his grandparents and the girls on the flag line. Their vivid descriptions painted a king's banquet with flavors stretching to every corner of the world. He'd a tongue for the divine and if this epicurean delight was even half as brilliant as described, he'd leave with an encyclopedic knowledge of the bon vivant!
The door stood before him. It was a stock wooden door with a heavy gloss. Usually reserved for homes constructed during the late 70's, he could only assume the choice was not one based in aesthetics but one of comfort; to make one feel at home. Growing up in a condo himself, he had a flat, white door completely unadorned... but he understood. He stepped on the pressure sensitive rubberized mat that would, like a doorman to the finest of restaurants, allow him access to the palate pleasing selections beyond.
Nothing happened.
Confused, he stepped aside, paused, and stepped back on. Nothing! He leaned over to double check the sternly labeled "HOURS OF OPERATION" sign. They were most definitely open at 1:13 PM on a Saturday. He thought hard to himself but not TOO hard. He'd learned his lesson about that! Was he not the King Arthur to this conosseuirs' stone? Glancing both ways to guarantee the presence of no onlookers, he began furiously stomping on the mat. *thunk!* The sound of a car door!
He quickly adopted a casual air about himself and started towards his car. Passing a rather rotund couple on his cunning trip, he began counting in his head. One... two... three... and FOUR! He quickly turned! The couple, the larger one holding a cane and the shorter one on a motorized scooter, had only distanced themselves by five or six feet. They didn't seem to notice his alarming behavior so he continued watching as they neared his rubberized foe. As the first wheel of the woman's electrical tricycle rolled onto the mat in conjunction with the larger man's cane - the ugly door opened. His eyes bulged! He no longer cared about his pride. If he knew anything, he knew he would not let an opportunity like this escape him. A meet gun exploded in his mind commencing his dash towards the automated door. He barreled past the mentally slow couple.
Eyes bright with wonder, he stopped to take it all in... and then he just stopped entirely. This place was a shit hole! A Muzak version of "Friends in Low Places" played.
"Just one er yew gawt anuhtha awhn tha way?"
"Uhhh."
"Follah me."
He sat. Given no instructions, he waited for five minutes for a waitress.He felt hopelessly deflated by the lackluster foyer and dining area. Other patrons seemed to have figured the system out. He watched them slide off of the naugahyde bench and head towards the center of the room. He rose slowly and headed towards the growing crowd. Passing a table of six in prayer, he only caught one line: "God bless us and this $5 off coupon included in this weeks ValuPak. It means a lot to Chuck and me to..." Continuing on, he joined the rest in a line to which he could see no end.
Just a matter of time now. He felt out of place. Everyone was nearly triple his weight. "How funny," he thought to himself, "I really do feel like I'm in a cattle line." His thoughts were given even more credence as some of the cows moved out from in front of him and off to the left and right. The food! It was stored in troughs! Now, he'd been to gimmicky restaurants before. He'd made his own burger at Fuddruckers, eaten whole sticks of butter at the Cracker Barrel, and even paid to grow his own salad at the trendy New York nightspot, "Grass."
"Do I trust the opinion of my grandparents and the girls of the flag line?" In a flash, a rush of previous disagreements all processed at once. Reality returned. His mouth was agape, his face contorted in disgust... an empty plate lay below him and 30 feet of troughs beyond.
"Hurry it up. Jesus Christ Almighty."
"What's the hold up, skinny?"
"CHEESEBURGER!"
The pumping of fists and shouting voices startled him and wore at his defenses. He quickly clutched the plate and darted right towards certain sanctuary... the salad bar! Satan snickered. No such solace would be found, not here. The Old Country Buffet had found a way to obliterate the redemption often found in a plate of greens. Iceberg lettuce, thousand island dressing; toppings that included bacon, chocolate, and cheeseballs. The battle was lost. He joined the fray.
When the first spatula of meatloaf slapped against his plate, he lost all self control. A once empty plate was fast moving towards a meal for four... five! Two fist sized meatballs dove into a pool of butter located in the mountainous region of instant mashed potatoes. A torrent of sour cream quickly rained down on top of that providing snowcaps of cardiac arresting proportions. Fried chicken slathered in sausage gravy smashed between two buttered pieces of Texas toast. A mad scientist was at work destroying the previous years' hard exercise and heavily regimented diet. As a constant stream of chocolate sauce spewed forth towards a stack of blueberry cornbread, it was realized that there no boundaries left to cross.
He had walked into the establishment in the bright of the afternoon, a fit teen eager for the promised success of the coming months. This was six hours ago. Rationale, sanity, and self-control were all abandoned after the first of many whirlwind blitzes through the rows of the breaded, the buttered, and the fried. He was carted away from the buffet... comatose. Our hero as we had known him had died.
Three months later, crusty eyes opened up. This room was foreign to him. White walled... cold... clinical. What was this? This was a hospital! Why was this a hospital? Well, he thought, it was built that way but why was he IN a hospital?? He could not move his arms though he felt no restraints. What was pinning his arms down? Gritting his teeth, he managed to sit upright while straining every muscle in his body. Looking down, he didn't realize what he saw. This blob beneath him... it was his body. The unmovable arms, the bulging legs... this was our hero! Shock overtook and threw him right back into his indefinite slumber.
Doctors would later call it a triumph in the understanding of psychological and physiological distresses. How could it happen to one man? In one day? To go from a fit 170lbs and blimp well past the 600lb? Unheard of! When he'd finally awoken, he weighed in at 595. The doctors recounted his trip to the buffet based on eye witness accounts. He was shocked by the details. He was informed that he'd missed the target date for his shuttle deployment. He'd also missed the target weight! He was ineligible for the program based on his abnormal size. No human above 230lbs has even been sent into space. Sadness filled our hero. The jobs he'd applied for? All three companies fell victim to massive lawsuits during his slumber.
Months passed with minor weight loss. He was able to walk for short periods at his 572lb weight. He became a rather sedentary individual spending most of his time lying around at home dousing the space between his rolls of flab with talcum powder. His mailbox would fill with hate mail and fan mail... both discarded upon arrival. With no idea what to do with himself, he didn't have many other options but to lay there. FedEx had delivered one curious overnighted letter that begged his attention.
Reading its contents brought a slanted smile to his face. It was from Old Country Buffet. The company thought they could spin his nightmares into some tale of irresistibly good food. Just as Subway had recently began playing the first of what would be many Jared ads, Old Country Buffet extolled the virtues of being an absolute fat fuck. What those virtues were, they never bothered with but it had something to do with a $5 off coupon.
---------------
I couldn't possibly tell you why I began writing this garbage or why I bothered finishing it. If you made it this far, shame on you.