Eat Yourself Rich

Looks like Drudgebart's readers are still doing good work, sending in links to amusing stories. Today's honey is about a New York cop--one Paul Soto--who weighs 500 pounds, injured his knee outside of his doctor's office, and sued unsuccessfully for a fat (heh) pension.

I pick on cops sometimes, because like most people, I have repeatedly encountered "cop personality." You know what I mean. A lot of nuts who get sexually aroused by the thought of pushing people around become cops, so they can do it for a living. And then instead of remembering the "servant" in "public servant," they think they somehow outrank the citizens who pay them for protection. It's an irritating thing to deal with, and it makes me glad I became a lawyer, because while a cop can only abuse you while you're in custody, a lawyer can make you want to kill yourself every day for the rest of your life.

Even though I think the job attracts a lot of real pukes, my natural reflex is to support the police, and I never lose sight of the fact that they lay their lives on the line every day for a comparatively low wage. I never forget that many of them are fine, courageous, unselfish people, and that they have to deal with the kind of filth the rest of us only see on reality TV or when watching the Miami Hurricanes play.

That being said, I'm afraid I feel some doughnut jokes coming on.

This character weighed 250 pounds when he was hired, and he was 5 feet 7 inches tall. You have to wonder how tall he would have been had he lost the weight. You also have to wonder who sets the hiring standards for the NYPD these days. My guess? An investigation would reveal wire transfers from the Krispy Kreme corporation. When I was in college, I knew a guy who was about six feet tall and weighed 257, and he looked like a big jiggly house. At five-seven, when Soto got his job, he was already knocking on heaven's door with a fork.

Is this the sad consequence of halfwits like Rosie O'Donnell, trying to turn fat people into a protected minority? Are we already living in a world where the ADA applies to people not because they can't move their legs or can't see, but because they really, really like Ring Dings? You have to wonder. When this guy's application was processed, did a representative from the National Association for the Advancement of Fat People show up on a pallet jack and pressure the department to hire him?

I know fat people face special challenges, because I'm fat, myself. Like I always say, the vast majority of skinny people have absolutely no self-discipline and stay thin simply because they aren't programmed to eat as much. Think of the skinny morons you know. Think of the responsible fatties you know. Am I right? Of course I'm right. Still, if you're fat, you have a responsibility to do something well before you hit the five-century mark. You can, therefore you should. That's how it works. Is it fair? Maybe not. But it's reality, so it doesn't matter if it's fair.

I now wish I had a cushy government job. Because Mr. Soto has proven that a civil servant who doesn't feel like working can get special treatment simply by pounding pastries into his maw. When he got too fat to work, they should have fired his ass. All of it. Instead they put him behind a desk, with what was presumably a very sturdy chair, and they sat around and waited for him to hurt himself on the job.

I love how his attorney describes his injury. He said Soto was outside the building where his doctor worked, "trying to navigate around a pallet" when he fell. Injuring his knee, altering the tides, and startling seismologists as far away as Japan. "Navigate." How appropriate. Maybe a bunch of tiny officers assembled on his bridge, got out their parallel rulers and a chart, and plotted a course around the pallet. Maybe he should have waited for a tugboat.

His former coworkers say he was nice. Sure he was nice. I'm always nice too, after 57 crullers. Nothing wipes away crabbiness like a blood sugar reading of 500.

Thank God, he lost in court. Otherwise, fat people all over New York would be bellyflopping deliberately in such stairwells as would admit their girth. I guess they do that anyway. It IS New York.

I wonder if TV production companies treat the fat like the handicapped. If so, we know what Jennifer Love Hewitt is up to.

I guess one day every physical problem will be a disability, regardless of how you got it. Tired of working? Hit yourself in the face with a hammer until they put you on disability. As for Mr. Soto, I think he was damned lucky to get a half-pay pension for life. He'll still have to work, but now he has a truly awesome pizza allowance.