Saturday, November 17, 2012

Why not be happy?

The other day, I was feeling ridiculously fat. I've been overweight for a long time, and it hasn't really bothered me very much, but yesterday I just felt Something Should Be Done About This. Could have had something to do with the fact that I had to make a sojourn to Old Navy and Nordstrom Rack before I found anything that would fit my... Ahem... unique physique.

Today I was at Fred Meyer buying some odds and ends to take down to a local homeless camp. A friend of mine convinced me that this would be a perfectly good thing to do, and since my mother-in-law had recently told my wife that my karmic record was a tad shy of the required amount necessary for us to have a successful real estate transaction for this new house we're trying to buy... OK, I lost track of where I was in that last sentence. Ah, fatness, Fred Meyer, homeless people. So anyway, I'm standing in the checkout line looking at all the people around me, and I notice EVERYBODY IS KIND OF FAT! And for some reason, this makes me happy. Not because their fatness hides my fatness, but because we are living in a place where our needs are met. We're all fat! It occurred to me that I was looking at fatness the wrong way.

"We should be happy," I think to myself, looking around at all my fellow countrymen and countrywomen with their ample girths and their smart phones and their prescription eyeglasses and sparkling teeth.

We should be happy, because we have clean water and flushing toilets and schools for our kids and roads to drive around on. We should be happy because we have each other to keep each other company, and give each other ideas like bringing stuff to the homeless camp, or making chicken mole for the family, or writing an essay that encourages everybody to Just Be Happy.

Here is a song Hunter and I made earlier this year about this.

Or you can stream it, I think. Please enjoy.