[this is reposted because the system ate it once.]
Did you ever wonder what it’s like to be a cat and have a giant human hand petting you? Speaking as a human, I generally like it when ordinary-sized hands touch me. But I wouldn’t like gigantic hands on me. I feel sorry for cats. Giant hands are creepy.
I was thinking about this because I got a massage when I was in Reno. Reno calls itself “the biggest little city in the world.” That’s a marketing way of saying that most of the residents and visitors are morbidly obese. I can vouch for that.
Let me be clear that I do not approve of making fun of overweight people. Those that mock the hefty are delusional because they believe in the superstition of will power. They believe that some people have a lot of this non-existent will-power substance whereas overweight people have less of it.
I believe that will power is an illusion. Overweight people simply get more enjoyment from food than thin people do, at least relative to their other pleasure options. If I liked food more than I like playing tennis, I’d be the size of a house. Will power never enters into it.
You can see my theory play out with kids. Kids have no will power, yet many of them are skinny. The skinny ones get so little pleasure from non-candy food that they prefer starving and playing with a friend to eating. It’s a chore to make them eat. The overweight kids are the opposite. They also have no will power – just like every other kid – but for some reason they get more pleasure from food. It’s the same for adults. Some are passionate about food; some just see it as fuel.
Having made this defense of the portly, this story requires me to point out that some people are larger than others. Deal with it.
I was sitting in the men’s locker room waiting for my masseuse at one of the big hotels in Reno. Because the masseuses were mostly women, and this was the men’s locker room, the masseuse would crack open the door and call your name when you were next. The door was frosted glass, so I could see the silhouette of a petite woman at the door. Her tiny voice beckoned “Mr. Johnson? Hi, I’m Nicole, your masseuse for today.”
Mr. Johnson departed for his massage and I was the only one left. I kept an eye on the frosted glass door for my very own Nicole. What I saw instead was a total eclipse. Some sort of huge mass blocked the light coming through the door. “Oh, dear god, no” I thought. But it moved past, to my relief. Then the huge mass reappeared from the other direction. It was like a bad monster movie when you know the beast is on the other side of the door. The doorknob turned and I considered running, but it was too late. “Mr. Adams?” boomed the voice. Jabba the Rubber had me.
In the past I have had massages from practitioners who were sporting extra pounds, and it obviously made no difference in the massage. But this masseuse wasn’t just a big eater – she was a big person. Her hands were the biggest I have ever seen. I felt like Shaquille O’Neal’s pet squirrel.
Since it was Nevada, and I know you’ll ask, let me say that there was no happy ending. The beginning and middle weren’t too festive either. It felt like being smothered with an oily mattress.
And that is why I pet my cat with one finger.