So I’m talking to my daughter after she had her wisdom teeth pulled and I ask her, “So, now that you’ve gotten your teeth pulled are you dumber?”

Insert significant pause.

“Oh, I don’t know. Maybe. No. Whatever.”

I laugh.

We chat for a few minutes more then hang up.

An hour later a voice mail is waiting for me on Skype. “Dad, when you asked me if I was dumber ‘cuz I got my wisdom teeth pulled, I didn’t get it. But I just got it. So I guess I’m dumber.”

Insert significant pause from Dad followed by roarous laughter.

I’ve got 20 minutes before my flight to Denver boards so I thought I’d drop a little rant about the latest thing to catch my attention in America.

Great big fat people. Gi-freaking-normous balls of lard that wobble like webbles down the terminal.

Holy cow I thought I was fat. Well I AM FAT. I know it. No sense in denying it. I’m roughly 80 pounds overweight (36.2 kg), with a new 10 pounds flying on me in the last 6 months. Now, because I am such a fat guy I have the authority to say nasty things about fat people. ‘Cuz as the saying goes, “I are one.”

Sometimes I think we fat people are like planetary bodies. We have gravity. We suck in everything that comes close to our sphere. In our case, my case, food. Pizza. Gotta love it. Hagen Daz, solid or squishy. Oh man. Omelettes, stuffed with, with, with, whatever! Don’t forget the cheese. Oh…the cheeeessse.

Now I’m one who understands how most of us get so disgusting looking – yes, we are disgusting looking. Admit it. Be real. Once you get a clue about how disgusting you look (as I have) then you finally get to the point of saying, “Maybe I don’t want to look so offensive to the rest of humanity?” I understand this. I own a mirror, it groans every time I approach. I don’t mind being the butt of a joke, but when your butt is the butt of a butt of a joke, well, come on.

But (oops) when I arrived in America I noticed that the food portions in restaurants seemed to be BIGGER. Seriously, just how big does that burrito have to be? I’m tempted to whinny as I count the height of my food in hands. Is it me, or is it really necessary to have a flight of stairs from the side-dish to the main dish? Forks need less exercise, not more. I could not believe the size of my morning omelet. Even I can’t eat that much. And have you seen the size of eggs in America? I mean, do chickens scream?

There must be an excess of food on American farms that they have to dump the extra on our plates. And the restaurants seem to be getting bigger too. I went to a place in Albuquerque that can seat HUNDREDS of people. That’s very cool, I like open space (I’m fat after all, I need MORE open space), but I shouldn’t have to change timezones to go from my table to the buffet line – unless of course the overwhelming number of fat people stretch that far. And speaking of my fellow fat people, guys, you’ve got a find a tailor so that when your pants hang down like that it doesn’t look like you left a deposit in your backside when you walk. Geez. Do I need to check my own butt?

Speaking from long experience, when you are served a giant plate of giant portions to cram down your giant gullet you can’t help but feel the pressing need to be a good boy and “clear your plate.” But dude, restaurant dude, you may charge of lot of money for that food, but I don’t really need to eat a dinner that will feed Somalia.

Giant portions. Giant plates. Giant people. Take it from me, when your stomach touches the edge of a standard table and the lowest you can drop your napkin is 2 inches under your nipples, then dude, dude, dude…do you need another picture? How about when your belly button gets stuck on the gum that kid stuck to the underside of the table? See! Something IS wrong FATSO!

Remember, I can say that cuz I ARE ONE.

Skinny people, if you want to help us then listen up. First, stop watching Oprah. We don’t need to feel good about ourselves. We need something better – ridicule. Secondly, stare at us, right in the tummy, make it obvious. Chuckle but don’t laugh. You don’t want to make us mad – trust me, never tick off a freight train – but a snicker behind your hand, a wink at a companion and chuckle will make us feel really bad. And we need to feel really bad so that we can really do something about it. If positive motivation REALLY worked for fat people then there would be none. There’s nothing a fat chick or guy likes better than to feel good about themselves as they stuff another cream filled eclair end-first down the pipe.

Well, I gotta go get on the plane. Coach seat. I’m one of those fat guys that sits next to you, stretches a lot, and says, “Excuse me, gotta use the bathroom,” 15 times a flight. Yeah, I’m one of those guys I used to make fun of. Well, I still make fun of them, except they are not “them” anymore, they are “us.”

I wrote this based upon and old joke I found online a while back. It will be included in my second short story book, When Shadows Dream: Midnight.

A young maiden danced in the early morning fog,
When she happened upon a magic green frog.
“Fear not,” said the frog in a perfect man’s voice,
“For I will grant you three wishes, please make your choice.”

“To find a magic frog is a dream come true,
But tell me young frog, is there a catch to this too?”
“There are conditions,” the frog said, “a first and a second,
If you agree to them now, then to your wishes I beckon.

“For each wish that you ask, I shall grant my best,
But I shall receive ten-fold your request.
And upon your first wish, my bride shall you be,
So wish wisely my dear, if you wish to agree.”

“I make my first wish,” the girl said with twirl,
“Make me the most beautiful lass in the world.”

The frog paused a moment, to remind her again,
“The beauty you receive, shall be mine times ten.
Think carefully now, can you compete?
For surely many women shall fall at my feet.”

“I care not young frog, for I shall be,
The desire of your eyes, and all that you see.”
So the frog granted the wish, and they instantly became,
Incredible to behold, in both form and frame.

“Were not my words true, and my magic a wonder?
Make your second wish now, and wait no longer.”
“Indeed I shall,” said the young bride,
I wish to be the richest woman alive.”

Again he tested her, saying, “Do not forget,
Ten-fold all your riches shall be mine to possess.
Will you be jealous, of the difference between,
The wealth that is yours, and what is mine, my queen?”

“How can a wife be jealous,” she answered this time,
“When what is mine is yours, and yours is mine?”
Her groom smiled broadly, “Truly you are wise,”
Then yelled, “Your beauty is now matched by the richest delights!”

Bursting with joy he embraced his bride,
Bending low for a kiss, but she stepped aside.
“Not too quickly my dear, one wish remains,
Until it is fulfilled, let us refrain.”

“Of course my sweet, let not time waste,
State your wish, with all due haste.
One part for you, whatever you say,
Ten-fold for me, without delay!”

The damsel resumed her dancing, then prancing away,
Giggling at how fortune had graced her this day.
Her new husband watched her as she took flight,
As she spoke her last wish with unfettered delight.

The damsel laughed knowing, only one thing she lacked,
“Grant me, I pray, a mild heart attack.”

A classic joke rewritten…by me.

An attorney and a fashion model found themselves seated together on a long flight across the country. Bored with the movie selection they began discussing their careers. The attorney complained that everyone regards his ilk as corrupt, always taking unfair advantage of people. The fashion model said she also thought that was true and didn’t trust attorneys. She then went on to complain about her own troubles – that everyone thinks fashion models are stupid. The attorney, still offended that the model thought he was dishonest, said he agreed that most fashion models weren’t that bright.

After several bouts of argument and silence the attorney proposed a duel of the minds. “Tell you what,” he said, “Let’s ask each other questions and for each question we get wrong, we have to pay the other five dollars.”

The fashion model looked skeptical. “See, I’m not that stupid. You are a college-educated lawyer. I wear dresses and bikinis for a living. Your challenge doesn’t seem that fair.”

The attorney changed the odds, “You pay five dollars, I’ll pay twenty dollars,” he said, but she refused. Finally the attorney said, “For every question I ask you, if you get the answer wrong I will pay you one hundred dollars. But if I can’t answer a question of yours, you only have to pay me five dollars.”

The fashion model looked at him skeptically then said, “Okay, go ahead and ask a question.”

The attorney rubbed his hands together excitingly and said, “What is a writ of habeas corpus?”

Without a word the model reached into her purse, pulled out a five-dollar bill and handed it to the lawyer. “My turn,” she said. The attorney folded the bill and stuffed it in his pocket, smiling. “Fire away,” he said.

“What goes up a hill with three legs but comes back down the hill with four legs?”

The attorney was stumped. Not wanting to be beaten in a game of wits by a dumb fashion model, he opened his laptop and searched his encyclopedia. When he couldn’t find the answer he asked around to other passengers seated nearby, but no one could give him the answer. Finally in frustration he gave up, pulled out his wallet and handed the model one hundred dollars.

As the model counted the cash the attorney said, “Okay, so what is the answer to your question?”

Without hesitation the model handed him another five dollars.

Yeah, I knew that headline would get your attention. But according to one researcher, it’s apparently true. OMIGOSH! This article reads like a joke from the Daily Show. This is just too good to pass up. To use a “chick word,” this article is just “precious.”

From the London Daily Mail (yes guys, it’s okay to laugh hysterically through this article):

WOMEN TALK THREE TIMES AS MUCH AS MEN, STUDY SAYSIt is something one half of the population has long suspected – and the other half always vocally denied. Women really do talk more than men.

In fact, women talk almost three times as much as men, with the average woman chalking up 20,000 words in a day – 13,000 more than the average man.

Women also speak more quickly, devote more brainpower to chit-chat – and actually get a buzz out of hearing their own voices, a new book suggests.

The book – written by a female psychiatrist – says that inherent differences between the male and female brain explain why women are naturally more talkative than men.

In The Female Mind, Dr Luan Brizendine (Note: Is this chick named after an allergy drug?) says women devote more brain cells to talking than men.

And, if that wasn’t enough, the simple act of talking triggers a flood of brain chemicals which give women a rush similar to that felt by heroin addicts when they get a high. (Note: Careful Tom, don’t say anything here. Just be cool.)

Dr Brizendine, a self-proclaimed feminist, says the differences can be traced back to the womb, where the sex hormone testosterone moulds the developing male brain.

The areas responsible for communication, emotion and memory are all pared back the unborn baby boy.

The result is that boys – and men – chat less than their female counterparts and struggle to express their emotions to the same extent.

“Women have an eight-lane superhighway for processing emotion (duh), while men have a small country road,” said Dr Brizendine, who runs a female “mood and hormone” clinic in San Francisco. (Mood and hormone clinic? Is that like a heroin-equivilency clinic for women?)

There are, however, advantages to being the strong, silent type. Dr Brizendine explains that testosterone also reduces the size of the section of the brain involved in hearing – allowing men to become “deaf” to the most logical (???) of arguments put forward by their wives and girlfriends. (Huh? What was that? Huh?)

Oh man. I just have to believe that this article is joke by the editors. But hey, it’s a serious newspaper, so I guess it’s legitimate for a guy to sometimes say, “That woman just won’t shut up!” Hey, don’t blame me. Blame Doc Benzine or whatever her name is. I forget. I wasn’t listening.

Offended? Lighten up baby.