Weighty Matters

Or: “Weight Matters”

My younger sister texted me the other day, wanting my feedback on why she appears to be unemployable. She wanted me to check something called “e-verify” for her, to see if it’s saying bad things about her that are scaring potential employers off.

I didn’t have to check e-verify. I know what’s scaring employers off. She’s twice the size she should be. She’s almost as round as she is tall. If I’m doing the hiring and five qualified candidates make the cut to the final elimination round, the morbidly obese candidate is the first one I am going to vote off Potential-Employment Island.

Unless there’s one with crazy-eyes, or serious personal hygiene issues. They’d get eliminated first, then the morbidly obese one. But they’d all definitely get the door.

Why hire someone who is comically fat? They’re going to need special accommodations at the office, they’re statistically likely to take more sick days off because that kind of extra weight is inherently unhealthy, and they demonstrate their lack of control over themselves just by squeezing into the doorway, why would I figure they were any more disciplined at any other part of their life, specifically work?

The same way I wouldn’t hire someone coming in reeking of booze—and for many of the same reasons—I wouldn’t hire someone as overweight as my sister or Gov. Chris Christie. Or as fat as I was at the beginning of the summer.

I’m in the newspaper biz, so I’m looking nervously at having to hit the job-interview circuit myself sometime not too long from now. Consequently, I have put forth the effort and dropped a good 25-30 lbs this summer. Granted, it started off as trauma-induced weight-loss a couple times at the beginning of summer, but the decision to Step Away From The Mountain Dew has been critical.

So has my decision to eat only when I’m hungry, and then only till I’m not hungry—as opposed to “full.” Such a tiny change in behavior has yielded such happy results! 30 pounds just by denying myself soda and a full belly. Not a lick of exercise (which is my next cross to bear).

The Missus, her parents and I also threw down a bunch of cash at my long-in-the-tooth teeth, in an attempt to resolve the issue once and for all. I am now the owner of a dazzling, picture-perfect off-grey smile.

I may not have any marketable skills to offer in the new digital communications paradigm, but by God, I’ll look good flaming out at those job interviews!

Which really brings me back to Gov Christie of Bruce Springsteen’s home state. I’ve long said, there’s no way Lincoln could win office today, ugly as he was; just like there’s no way Taft could win, enormous as he was, in an America that is as increasingly health-conscious as we are. Even people who don’t care, like my sister, at least know what they’re doing to themselves.

(For an in-depth rebuttal of my argument, click here: BALDERDASH )

Even if you love Christie’s politics, which I understand are too “liberal” for the Tea Party fire-breathers currently pulling the strings of the GOP, why would you vote somebody into office knowing they’re actuarially likely to suffer serious, debilitating illness in the next five tears, from diabetes, to stroke, to heart attack to you-name-it.

You wouldn’t be voting for Christie, you’d be voting for his Vice President.

Hell, I’d vote for Oprah first. She’s at least shown she can take the weight off. Keeping it off is the real bitch, but that will be another column another day, I’m sure. Meanwhile, Christie can’t get it off at all.

I dated a plus-size gal for a little while, and let me tell you, it wasn’t long before I hated watching her eat. It was like having a drunk in your life, for whom you cared deeply, drink his liver away in front of you. Or a lung cancer patient with a three-pack-a-day habit. I couldn’t handle it. I had to bail.

The time to bail on Gov. Christie is before he is thrown into the GOP Primary whirlwind. This is a star-crossed affair at the onset. Even if the Deep Pockets of the GOP talk Christie into running, the Ron Pauls, Michelle O’Bachmanns and Rick Santorums of the ascendant Right Wing won’t have a thing to do with him.

And even if by some dark miracle of political arm-twisting they did, he’d be a lousy candidate because of his unhealthy personal habits. Seriously, it would be like voting for Otis the town drunk, or your teenage daughter who cuts herself, for President.

The mess she’s in, America deserves better. She deserves someone whose mettle has been tested, and the response didn’t come back, “Super-size it! And throw in a basket of them curly-fried onion rings.”

And my sister deserves better, too. I’m gonna screw up the courage to have a come-to-Jesus phone call with her soon about the real reason she’s not getting past Point A in the job application process.

Because I believe that although people don’t change, behavior can. And that’s what I’m going to try to impress upon my sister.

Show me a Gov. Christie in four years who’s half the man he is now, and I’ll give him twice as serious a look.

In the meantime, I would urge my sister and Governor Christie to heed the sage advice of the wife of the Oracle, Ronald Reagan, when confronted by your next Denny’s Jumbo Texas-Sized Breakfast Platter or 64-ounce tankard of Pepsi Cola… and just say no.