Said The Fat Man

There was a fat man at the gym. I noticed him whilst pedalling on the bike.  His balled up towel was on the floor next to his ankle and he was staring at it with a mixture of despair and disgust. He couldn’t seem to lift any of the weights. He moved onto the next weight machine. I didn’t have my glasses on, but I’m pretty sure he was crying, and having a Facebook chat with his mum. He then went back to the previous machine, tried to lift something, failed to lift it again, glared at a fit man in a vest.

Then, dear reader, he noticed that I was watching him. Now, in my defence, I have to observe the world, and its many tragic things, in order to write about it. I was harmlessly writing a blog commentary in my head, and leaning over the handles of the bike, thoroughly entertained. He then came and sat on the weight machine next to me, in what I originally saw as his first stage of attack, but what I now realise was him trying to drag morale from the fat people sticking together. He sat there, this fat man, watching me, taking comfort in two fat people against this aesthetics obsessed world.

I was a little upset. I looked to the girl next to me, and realised she was hardly using the cross trainer, more exhibiting her lean body across it. I quickly realised that she paid £30 a month to make me feel bad, which is extortionate, even for a recession

I went over to the treadmill. I listened to a bit of Katie Perry.  When I wanted to stop, my brain sighed, ‘well you’ll never look like Katie Perry if you do that’. I wondered why the fat man was still watching me, and hoped he was not now cheering me on, on behalf of the fat race.

I ran. I looked at my heart rate at the end, expecting it to say ‘dead’. Luckily, it was only a few beats off my estimated maximum heart rate, so I was only almost dead. Look at me fat man, you have been mistaken in your analysis. I am not dissimilar to that skinny girl, reading Heat Magazine, and provocatively rubbing her thighs at fit vest man. Go home. Have a burger. Leave me be.

So just to conclude, I’m very athletic, and my possession of a chubby face does not necessarily provide a fat man with the rite to ogle/ follow me, whilst also assuming that my asthmatic breathing combined with his inability to lift his own towel, united us.

Good, I’m glad I cleared that up.