Doug Monroe's OPENLY OLD

Artificial Intelligence vs. "People of Size"

It’s hard to be an aging “Person of Size” during the holiday season.

Everyone offers you delectable sweets around the clock: coconut cakes, pies, fudge, candy canes, chocolate Turtles, Hershey’s Kisses, Rugelach, Chocolate Babka, Sweet Noodle Kugel, dreidel cookies, sweet potato pie, peach cobbler, and Hummingbird Cake.

I could go on.

We fat folks can really pack it in during the holidays.

I was a sickly child and every time I stayed home with an asthma attack in grammar school, Mama got me Cokes in those little bottles, candy bars, bags of M&Ms, and comic books. I found my first-grade report card and saw that I missed over half the classes and still got A’s. Smart kid -- good grades while gorging myself and watching Howdy Doody.

I was happiest when I was home sick. Perhaps this is why I am a cornucopia of hypochondria at age 78.

My weight gain caught up with me in fourth grade at E. Rivers Elementary School on Peachtree Battle Avenue in Atlanta. The teacher, Ms. Valentine, called me to the front of the class on the last day of the school year and said, “Doug, I’ve never seen a boy grow so much in one year.’ I beamed because I was growing taller – but she stretched her arms out to her sides and declared: “THIS WAY!”

My classmates howled with glee.

Fat Shaming

This is why I hate fat shaming so much, especially artificial intelligence videos like this:

And this one:

And this one:

I stayed fat until I hit puberty and shot up to 6-foot-2 and 170 pounds and played sports and had dates almost like a real boy.

I didn’t get fat again until I was a freshman at the University of Georgia and started binging on beer and dining at the all-you-can eat boarding houses of that era. And it’s been a battle ever since.

I like to say “I keep my weight between 170 and 260. Right in there. That sweet spot.”

Unfortunately, I lean more toward the higher figure. My porky peak was 265 when I was teaching special ed students in a south Brooklyn middle school. The kids threw things at me. I calmed my nerves by gobbling Sicilian pizza at nearby Spumoni Gardens, where they had a picture of Paulie Walnuts of the Sopranos with his autograph saying, “best pie in town!”

I weighed 238 this morning. I lost 10 pounds last week the hard way. I got sick. There was a time in 1989 when I dropped down to 170 and was diagnosed as anorexic. My butt cheeks didn’t meet. I eventually gained the weight back.

Overeaters Anonymous

Long ago, I joined the 12-step group Overeaters Anonymous and found it really helped when I followed the program. I lost 70 pounds three times. But eventually I would eat a piece of coconut cake that would trigger a binge and I would inflate like a Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade float.

It soon will be time to waddle back to OA when it’s standing room only with the New Year’s Resolution crowd.

Fat Acceptance

I once attended a convention for a Fat Acceptance group, made up of people who think they’re cute as a bug no matter how much they weigh. One item on the agenda was a panel about whether enormous people who must pay for two seats on passenger jets are entitled to two snacks.

The saddest thing was seeing a mother and daughter who had identical builds, with huge thighs, arms, and butts. They were bent over from all the fat. It taught me that in so many cases obesity is genetic and won’t be fixable until genetic engineering and Crispr technology get up to speed.

“Mama Got Two for the Price of One and So Can You!”

I was a huge fan of Live Atlanta professional wrestling as a boy. The villains were Freddie Blassie and The Mighty Yankee. My heroes were Ray Gunkle, the gigantic Haystack Calhoun, and the even bigger McCrary twins, Benny and Billy.

As boys growing up in Hendersonville, N.C., they contracted rubella (German Measles). According to Wikipedia, the disease damaged their pituitary glands and they began growing wildly.

They topped out at over 700 pounds each and were called “The World’s Heaviest Twins.” They became wrestlers and commercial pitchmen, riding tiny motorcycles in Las Vegas and in TV ads. They changed their name to McGuire, which was easier for Japanese wrestling announcers to pronounce.

Their finishing move was the “Tupelo Splash,” when one of the brothers would land on a prone opponent, followed by the “Steamroller,” when the brother would roll back and forth over the squashed wrestler.

Billy was killed when he fell off his motorcycle. Bennie briefly partnered with Andre the Giant, then owned a pawn shop, became an auctioneer, and eventually was the Fat Man sitting in front of the Guiness Book of World Records Museum in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.

My family, on vacation, strolled past him one day and my little boy screamed in horror. Bennie later lost a great deal of weight but complained about the loose skin – the “flaps” – left dangling on his body. These are the curse of massive weight loss.

Earlier, when I was a newlywed in Nashville, my then-wife Mimi and I were having our first homemade Thanksgiving dinner with turkey and trimmings.

I secretly sent a telegram to the Twins at their Hendersonville address and invited them to our little feast. Alas, they did not show.

Now that would have been a hoot!

Of course, artificial intelligence doesn’t wait for real gigantic wrestlers.

Medical Science to the Rescue

Rapid-weight-loss drugs are proving extremely helpful in melting off the fat. Unfortunately, one of the side effects is described on the Internet as “vaginal rot.”

A few years back, bariatric surgery was fashionable. A doctor would cut out a chunk of colon so the eaters couldn’t fit in more than a pea or two. But with hearty eating and a sharp focus they could soon swallow an entire Red Velvet cake.

It’s all very sad. But I accept Overeaters and love them as brothers and sisters.

Happy holidays to all sizes and shapes of folks!

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