Fat Chance Read Online Free PDF

up andfight back, the sad truth is that juries often show the same lack of sympathy toward the overweight that is mirrored in the real world. Out of the entire United States, only Michigan, Washington, D.C., San Francisco and Santa Cruz, California, make it illegal to discriminate against the overweight. Every place else, society is largely off the hook. The rationale: If you’re fat, it’s your own fault.
    And here’s the saddest evidence yet of how much society despises overweight. In a national survey done by Dorothy C. Wertz, an ethicist and sociologist at the University of Massachusetts Medical School, 16 percent of the general adult population said they would abort a child if they found out that it would be untreatably obese. By comparison, the survey found that 17 percent would abort if the child would be mildly retarded.

three
    I hear my phone ringing before I even turn the corner to my office.
    â€œIt’s Our Lady of Prospect Park,” Tamara calls out when she sees me.
    How could my mother not have seen the show? The TV was background music in the bakery. Always the drone, the predictable barks of laughter, applause. It would be a miracle if I could just get some work done.
    â€œIt’s my fault that you’re fat?”
    â€œI wasn’t blaming you, Mother.” Oh, here goes. “It was the lifestyle—”
    â€œYou never learned self-control, it’s—”
    â€œ Mother, it’s a little more complicated!”
    â€œWhat did you ever want that we didn’t give you?”
    â€œThat’s just it,” I say, pounding my fist silently on the desk. “I have to go, Ma, I’m on deadline. I’ll call you.”
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    Several hours later, I look up to see a messenger at my door, bearing a large golden shopping bag imprinted with one of the most welcome names on earth: Godiva. The bag is filled with the signature gilded boxes with samples as opulent as Fabergé eggs. But these ovoid wonders are edible: Godiva’s new truffle collection. I lift the first. Outside is a domed shell of black-brown bittersweet chocolate, a confectionary canvas covered with Jackson Pollock–style café-au-lait drippings. I bite. My tongue is having a party for my mouth as it is washed with cappuccino cream. I take another, milk chocolate with a hint of hazelnut. The third is bittersweet mocha chocolate filled with cherry cream.
    â€œI’ve found religion. Tamara, you have to try these.” No answer. “Tamara?” The phone rings again. Is Godiva publicly held? I lick my fingers and lift the receiver. Does that count as exercise?
    â€œMaggie O’Leary? I have Robert Redford on the line from Sundance…”
    I bite into another—“Mmm mmm mmm”—then swallow. “I know Bob, and I’m on deadline, mon cher, bad timing.” I slam down the phone. It rings again, but this time I lift it up and then drop it into the garbage pail.
    â€œDo you know how low you are Barsky? You’re in the bottom of the garbage pail, you swine.” I hear his signature nasal laugh as I fish the receiver out of the garbage.
    The morning a pail of bulls’ balls was delivered from a Ninth Avenue bodega, just after I got the column, I filled Tamara in. “He’s been at the paper forever, and pulling this stuff keeps him awake between stories.”
    â€œYou could ignore him.”
    â€œBut then he’d stop.”
    I consider returning fire using a foreign identity. German? Dietrich? No, I can do better. Later. Now I have to apply ass to seat and get to work.
    â€œSHIT.” The phone’s ringing again. “Tamara! Tamara! Tell Barsky to cool it.” I wait, but my phantom assistant is gone. I snatch up the phone.
    â€œEnough, asshole. I have work to do. This is a newspaper, remember?”
    There is silence on the line.
    â€œAlan! Don’t ignore me and don’t start that sick breathing thing again. You