Super size my lawsuit

I’m fat as hell, and I’m not going to take it anymore.

OK, I’m not really fat (technically), but I’ve never been one to allow facts to get in the way of a rant, and now is no time to start.

Because the word is out and the fix is in: Apparently, get this, being overweight is bad for your health. I know, I know. Stunned silence was my response, too. I mean, carrying around a cellulite spare tire, being unable to run without getting winded, having your stamina falter (and always at exactly the wrong time)-it all feels so good, who would have thought it was your body’s way of announcing that it’s badly overloaded and your heart’s about to give out? All this time I thought the four food groups were red meat, candy, french fries and pizza. Why didn’t anyone tell me my food charts were all wrong?

But according to government figures, its not just me. Apparently well over half of all Americans could stand to lose some pounds (or kilos, as they call them in Europe).

Now, if there’s one thing I know, it’s movie trivia. If there are two things I know, they’re movie trivia and the American people, and the American people ain’t dumb.

So clearly, if it were incredibly obvious that fast food (an amorphous category of consumables that ranges from served-in-30-seconds Big Macs to get-to-you-in-about-an-hour pizzas) was a fast track to bad health, someone would have figured it out. And since, as far as I know, no one ever realized this before, it’s clear that the good old USA has been swindled.

Yes, that must be it; we’ve all been boondoggled. A vast conspiracy of criminal masterminds has endangered our health and made a killing doing it. And really, there’s only one thing we can do, only one course of action we can take to set right our national nutritional balance before a series of compounded cardiac calamities gives our insurance industry a heart attack.

What’s that, you say? Exercise? Eat right? Eat less? Talk about retro. No, getting fit and slimming your waistline is far too 20th century. In modern America we get even and bloat our wallets instead.

That’s right, I’m going to sue. That red-headed freak Ronald McDonald is on the top of my list. Right below him are the Burger King and the Dairy Queen. I’d sue Dave Thomas, founder of Wendy’s, if I could, but he died of a heart attack last year.

And you can’t limit the scope of a lawsuit this important to just the obvious malefactors. No, you have to super-size the payouts by biggie-sizing the defendants list.

That’s why I’m going to sue Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, Subway, my gym and anyone else I can possibly connect to my eating habits. So you better be nice to me, mom, because you used to serve cake on my birthday, so maybe my girth is all your fault!

I’m sure some of you will scoff at my lawsuit. You’d tell me to get in shape, or go on a diet. But I’ve tried.

I paid for a gym membership. Did I lose any weight? Not an ounce. And I always make sure to drink a Diet Coke with my midnight bowl of double chocolate ice cream with fudge. Is my waistline shrinking like the value of the NASDAQ? Afraid not. What more can you expect one man to do?

And yes, some will see the obvious parallels between my lawsuit and the recent crusade against “Big Tobacco,” and throw up the flimsy excuse that it’s not the same thing because “fatty foods aren’t addictive.” Wanna bet?

Just look at the poor Hamburgler. For 30 years he’s been risking life and limb to get his hands on Ronald’s sandwiches. The things only cost 99 cents, but does he have time for a job? No, he can’t earn the money because he’s always on the prowl for his next McFix. This poor, shattered soul, who should be happily married to Birdie and a productive citizen of McDonaldsland, has thrown his life away to become Mayor McCheese’s public enemy no. 1, all because of the addictive nature of the Big Mac’s secret sauce.

So Ronald can try to hide behind “scientific facts” and the small army of cancer-stricken children he supports and try to pass himself off as just a harmless fictional character, but we all know different now. He’s a drug pusher, pure and simple. And either he deserves hard time, or I deserve hard cash for being lured into his tasty-but-deadly web of deceit.

Because it’s not my fault, you see! The entitlement syndrome drilled into us since childhood in this post-Great Society world made mincemeat of my self-control and conception of proportionality. I’m a victim of slick advertising, all meat patties, super-sized fries and elementary school lunches that didn’t make me eat vegetables. Perhaps if my parents had spanked me as a child, I would have turned out normal, like Calista Flockhart, but instead they punished me with the threat of “no McDonalds.” What more proof do you need of my lack of complicity in my current conundrum?

I’m a broken, shriveled shell of a man, used up and cast aside by a faceless corporate giant intent on world domination. Only I’m not shriveled. And the McDonald’s corporation isn’t faceless. Nor does it seek world domination. But there you go again with the facts!

I’m the victim here. It’s McDonalds’ fault for selling me food! It’s my parents’ fault for being nice to me as a kid! It’s Laura Flynn Boyle’s fault for making anorexia such an unattractive option! It’s the elder George Bush’s fault for saying he didn’t like broccoli when I was an impressionable 12-year-old! It’s his son’s fault for… for some reason I can’t think of right now! It’s everyone’s fault but mine!

So give me some money. Hell, pay me by the excess pound. I deserve it. Really, I do. Because it’s never my fault! Or if I can’t have a lot of money, how about Double Quarter Pounder with Cheese Super Value Meals for life?