Setting: Grocery store
Two women are standing beside each other surveying the nearly empty bins of tomatoes. One is fat, the other is sort of fat, with the loose skin that often accompanies sudden and rapid weight loss.
“There’s not much selection is there?”
“Nope, I wonder what happened, why there was such a rush on tomatoes.”
A pause, during which both women examine tomatoes.
“I was just wondering, would you be interested in talking about weight loss, an all-natural –”
The fat woman interrupts.
“No, actually.”
…
The sort of fat woman shakes her head as though she can’t believe what she has just heard.
“Really?
The fat woman is smiling and polite.
“Yes, really.”
“Why not?”
“Well, I’m actually a size acceptance activist which means I’m happy with myself as I am and view diets, no matter what kind, as an unhealthy activity.”
The sort of fat woman turns to a different bin of tomatoes about halfway through this speech and gives no indication that she is listening.
The fat woman holds up an unblemished tomato. She has as many as she needs and so offers it to the sort of fat woman.
“Oh, this one looks good!”
The sort of fat woman continues to ignore the fat woman.
The fat woman places the unblemished tomato in a prominent place on the display and once again smiles.
“Okay, well, you have a good night.”
The fat woman is joined by her boyfriend and they both walk away.
“What did she just ask you?”
23 Comments
wow. good to see size activisim in action, but how bizarre. way to go tomato lady.
hooray!
That was so corny and stupid
Woohoo! I mean, not woo-hoo for diet lady…that’s kind of odd. Why would you be so presumptious? Le sigh.
You. Have got. To be kidding.
Unfortunately, I know you’re not. How in the name of Jesus H. Macy do people think it’s perfectly acceptable to make this kind of “offer” to perfect strangers? Almost as offensive as the religious pitches. sheesh. Classy way of handling it. Don’t know that I could have been so calm.
Heh, this reminds me of an encounter I had some years back, my husband (who is fairly slender) and I were at Colonial Williamsburg walking around and this older guy who looked like the groom’s dad from “My Big Fat Greek Wedding” just sort of appears out of the crowd in front of us.
“Hi Folks!” he says. “Y’all from around here?”
We shake our heads and say, “Nope, North Carolina.”
He says, “Ah! Are you Christians?”
Now my husband is a Christian but I’m sort of a non-defined Deist type with strong Pagan leanings. Long time ago we learned not to get into the religion conversation with strangers, it never ends well. So we just nod and smile.
“I’m glad y’all are Christians then cause I have some Good News to share!” and he launches into this thing about how he was sitting in his house last year and he received a message straight for his heart from the Good Lord up above, he sure did, and he wanted to share it with everyone he felt would be open to his message. Now I’m sure at this point you see where this is going, yes?
So the guy smiles at us beatifically and says, “Jesus spoke straight to my heart, and he said two words: Weight control.”
…
We boggled at him for about 30 seconds while he started nattering on about faith-based weight control, most of which neither of us heard because we were too busy going “wtf!*head a splode*” from the 90% right turn the conversation had taken. I finally just held up my hands and said, “Hold up, I am not having this conversation with you. ” He stopped and stepped back and mumbled something about not meaning any harm, and just sort of ran off.
Husband and I looked at each other and just started laughing. I mean, what else can you do? Talk about killing two birds with one rhetorical stone!
Even Jehovah’s Witnesses aren’t surprised when people turn them down. All us fatties are presumed to want to be “converted” to thin unless specifically stated otherwise. But with the “loose skin” thing, I was sure the SOFW was going to make a WLS sales pitch!
This story reminds me of one of the more annoying of things people do. When people don’t get their way, they think they can by treating the person they are not getting their way with like a small child.
Like, how she puts a unblemished tomato in front of the not so fat person and smiles. Like how you deal with a 2 year old. It makes me want to turn around and say, “What do you think this will accomplish? Acting as if you’re now going to be helpful, and smiling like a proud child because you placed a unblemished tomato by me. Did you think I’d go, “What a goood jooobbb! Now what were you trying to tell me? (the voice one would use when praising a small child)”.
Of course then I’d probaly get another childlike reaction adults seem to be fond of. Staring at you blankly like a scared kid afraid they’re going to be in trouble. Then people think it’s strange when I bring up the concept of adult-children.
You know what, Jackie? If someone’s going to be so rude and presumptuous to make a complete stranger’s weight their business, then they deserve to be treated like a child. Adults should know better than to stick their noses into someone else’s personal matters.
She was even ruder when she blatantly ignored the person whose business she’d gotten into just because that person politely–exceedingly so–and gently declined the offer for unsolicited weight loss advice. Rude, arrogant people who act like children are going to get treated like them.
I’m not sure that Jackie was entirely clear on who did what.
The fat lady, the one who didn’t want to talk about the weight loss system, the one who had been making polite conversation until this complete stranger implied that there was something wrong with her, and that she (the fat lady) should take advice from a complete stranger about how to “fix” it, was the one who tried to turn the conversation to its original, non-offensive topic—the dearth of nice tomatoes.
The not-so-fat lady was pretty rude. She asked a personal question, implied that the fat lady needed to change, then didn’t listen when the fat lady answered a question that she, the not-so-fat lady, had asked.
I’m not sure what Jackie thinks the fat lady was supposed to do.
What an excellent response. I’ll have to remember this. We all need our elevator speech.
Okay, this is so not what I expected from the title “Tomatoes.” But excellent work. I dunno if I could’ve been so polite.
Why is it that when we object, even nicely, to body hate/dieting/fat hate/whatever, we are automatically the bad guy. No matter how nice you are, you fuck with their sense of reality, and I t hink that’s what gets them.
But fuck yeah!
Ha, I bet she was selling Herbalife. That “all-natural” bit in her pitch makes me think so. People who’ve gotten caught up in that scam do all kinds of demented things to sell their products and would not be above approaching strangers in supermarkets.
Then again, she could have just been a presumptious twat.
Well, its simple, Withoutscene. We aren’t allowed to have our opinions so politness doesn’t really matter. We’ll still get a response like we politely just said the sky is green. No matter how much others define us as rude for believing in size acceptance, the problem just isn’t our demeanor. Its our beliefs.
Now that’s got to be the worst job in the world: Going up to people and insulting them so you’ll buy your product.
This kind of reminds me of what happens with school counselors. Though they are not technically strangers (being that they are your “counselor”), most of the time they don’t even know your name. But they think that it is their business to inquire about personal matters like weight just out of the blue. You can feel their eyes measuring you up, thinking “I wonder if she is an emotional eater” or “she must deliberately starve herself to look that way.” People who measure you up that way and then proceed to voice their “logical” conclusions about your mind and body are annoying and hurtful. They look at your appearance and believe that is a reflection of the soundness of your brain. Too fat, too skinny–you must have some underlying mental problems, naturally. Not to mention your are unsightly and should stay out of mainstream society until you restore yourself to the way you were “supposed” to look. Geez. I think people who do that, like the kind of fat lady in this story, should choose to not only keep their opinions to themselves, but ask themselves why they feel the need to “fix” people who are far from “broken.”
A few weeks ago, I was covering a story on a Relay for Life event. Relay for Life is an 18-hour walking fundraiser for the American Cancer Society. I saw a group of women wearing boas and colorful hats and began speaking with them on why they were there, etc… None of them had cancer. None of them were survivors. None of them had family members who had ever had cancer. They were there hawking some all-natural, vegetable in a pill snake oil to the cancer survivors and their families. Because, you know, a good diet and weight control is essential for beating cancer, they said.
I later received some correspondance from them asking me to come to some all-natural conference or something and I pointedly ignored them.
Right on, Carolyn J – I was thinking about this tomato-cruiser lady and what her deal must be. Unloading $3000 of Herbalife? I don’t think this is like the God Squad (excepting the weight-loss God Squad Jo describes – damn, that’s a new one on me), who operate under the conceit that it’s their responsibility to save souls or something. It’s like the Laura Mercier salespeople who assault you in department stores and insult your skin because you must, must, must buy this foundation/moisturizer or whatever. The sad thing is – that insulting high-pressure sales technique must work sometimes, or it would have been abandoned ages ago. Sadly, some of us really need to have our insecurities realized. Wouldn’t it be awful to have your commission depend on how awful you can make someone feel. Shudder.
Rio, what I think the fat woman should’ve done, is simply ignore the not-so-fat woman and walk away. Not lower herself to behaving in a way, that would make it seem she’s desperate for the other woman’s approval. Like, needing to be thanked for handing her a tomato.
It’s like my dad says, the best thing you can do with some people is simply leave them to suffer on through life, in ignorance.
I think also a point was made that the fat woman had a boyfriend, where it’s perceived that the not so fat woman didn’t.
What you all have been saying about how horrible it must be to have a job, where you need to make someone feel awful to earn a profit. Reminds me of a news story I heard awhile ago about LA Weight Loss.
They heard from a former LA Weight Loss client, that they psychologically abused her to keep her on the program. That they ask you questions, like what are you insecure about, or what do you feel bad about that you’ve done in your past. Then they use it against the client, when they consider leaving LA Weight Loss. More like LA Weight Cult.
Actually, Jackie, I don’t know anything about the romantic status of the not-so-fat woman. I only mentioned my boyfriend because this happened to me the other night. This is what transpired.
And, no, I’m not desperate for the other woman’s approval. It was really kind of funny to me, the effort she was making to ignore me. Because, ZOMG, turning down her weight loss spiel is SO offensive, right? *eyeroll* We started our contact on the basis of, “hey, there aren’t any good tomatoes.” I found what I needed, found some extra and tried to share it because there is no reason for me to NOT share my good tomato hunting fortune. The solution is not for me to snub her – at least not in my opinion. The solution is to continue to be just as friendly and open as I was before, which is what I did. Because I refuse to let her control this situation.
Well I guess Rio Iriri misunderstood, she seemed to have thought you meant the two people as an example.
Forget what I said, I won’t say anything more on the subject. Since you want to make whatever I say a personal attack against you. Did it ever cross your mind, I might just be talking about the situation in general?