You\u2019re 10 years old and waiting in line to get on the roller coaster. You see the bar ahead, the one you have to be taller than, to ride the \u201cMonster.\u201d Will you make it this year? You hope against hope, pulling yourself up, to be as tall as possible, wearing work boots to give you an extra half-inch. Maybe? But, no! Not tall enough again this year. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Fast forward 50 years. It\u2019s a different size test you need to pass this time, not to get on a ride, but into your favorite \u201call-you-can-eat\u201d restaurant. Ham, chicken, roast beef, mac and cheese, mashed potatoes, potatoes au gratin, vegetables (mostly going untouched), a zillion other items and a dessert bar that could feed a small village. This size test is not a height measurement; it\u2019s a set of bars that measures your girth. You\u2019ve got to fit through them to feed from the trough. You wait. You try. You fail. And are just as crushed as you were when you failed to make it onto the roller coaster fifty years earlier. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
A real scenario? Not yet, but it looms ahead as we evolve into an obese society. Without it, the all-you-can-eat restaurant business will become extinct. I think we\u2019re safe for a while; it hasn\u2019t come to a set of bars at the entrance. Not yet. The airline industry is another story. They already make us pay for our width, to buy a second ticket to get on board. We\u2019ve gotten bigger; the seats have gotten smaller. What a profit-making strategy. We\u2019re on even more of a collision course. A measurement system is all set up at the TSA scanners. The airlines just have to convince the agents to relay measurements to them, so they can collect the extra before we get on board. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
We wonder how this has happened to us. Every year when we went for a checkup our weight was almost the same as the previous year. Okay, maybe a pound or two more. If you do the math, you won\u2019t have to wonder anymore: two pounds per year, times 50 answers the question of how this happened. I refuse to do the math; I know my girth is expanding and I also know my height is shrinking. It\u2019s just a matter of time before I\u2019ll be banned from both, a smorgasbord and a roller coaster ride. It ain\u2019t as great as you might think to be an old coot.<\/p>\n\n\n\n