Short and Sweet

When Sally Smith agreed to meet me in the lobby of the Airport Marriott Hotel, I asked how I would recognize her. She replied, “I’m fat and I have auburn hair.”

It was not the kind of response that encouraged further questioning. To have asked “How fat?” would have bordered on bad manners. Fat and auburn would have to do.

Unfortunately, when I reached the Marriott there were several fat women in the lobby and, it seemed to me, many of them had auburn hair.

They were at the cashier’s counter, the concierge booth, the gift shop, the sports store and lined up to get into the restaurant, where a lavish brunch was being served.

America’s Fat Activists, you see, were in town.

Three-hundred members of the National Assn. to Advance Fat Acceptance had gathered at the Marriott for a six-day convention to plan their national strategy against “size discrimination.”

They are at war with the notion that fatandugly is one word and are attempting to radicalize America’s 70 million fat people.

“There is no blame in being fat,” Sally Smith said. She is executive director of NAAFA. “We are fat as a result of genetics and metabolism, not indolence or gluttony.

“Forcing us to be thin would be like bleaching black people to make them white. We don’t have a whole lot of choice either.”

By the way, I never did recognize Smith by her description, but she recognized me by mine. I am short and proud.

Smith, who weighs 300 pounds, says that fighting the stereotypes of sizism isn’t easy. They are still called fatso, chubby, pudgy, pig and Fatty, fatty two-by-four, can’t get through the kitchen door.

“We prefer being referred to as fat just as blacks prefer being called black,” she said. “Overweight implies an arbitrary standard, and obesity sounds like a disease. We’re fat. Period.”

When Smith tries to educate the public on size discrimination, very few take the problem seriously. Fat people are jolly and short people are cuddly, so what’s the big deal?

The big deal is that fat people are being rejected and/or fired from jobs because of their size and not their qualifications, Smith says. She wasn’t sure about short people, because that is not NAAFA’s specialty.

“Even worse,” Smith said, “we just heard that in Detroit, a woman who weighed 320 pounds was shot by her father and her sister for being fat and for having asthma.”

“That seems excessive,” I said, for lack of a better response.

“Indeed,” Smith said, wondering just how I had intended the comment.

“What I mean is, I wonder whether she was shot for being fat or for having asthma?”

Smith ignored the question, and went on to talk about a letter she received from a woman whose husband was about to leave her and whose children taunted her, all for being fat.

“You know what she weighed?” Smith asked. “A hundred and forty-five pounds! If you’re not as skinny as a model, you’re rejected. Well, not everyone is going to look like Cheryl Tiegs!”

I said, “Indeed.”

The problem is that we’re running short of victims.

Because of a raised consciousness, it is no longer acceptable to make fun of blacks, Mexicans, gays, Poles, women, drunks, Asians, senior citizens or people suffering from various forms of lunacy.

The producers of “A Fish Called Wanda” caught hell because a comic character stuttered, and anyone who makes fun of a Jew risks a commando raid out of Tel Aviv.

That leaves us, as a friend said, with blimps and shrimps.

“Most fat jokes are atrocious,” said Bill Fabrey, who founded NAAFA 20 years ago. “One of the worst going around is, ‘My mother-in-law is fat but she eats like a bird . . . a vulture.’ Ho, ho, ho.”

He shook his head. “I got a call one day from a man who collects ‘humor.’ He wanted to sell us 156 fat jokes for $1 each. Can you believe that?” Fabrey, 48, isn’t fat, but tells people he’s “accredited” because he’s married to a fat person.

He created NAAFA when he began to realize that Fat America had no voice. Today, the organization has 2,100 members in 37 chapters.

I, for one, wish the fatties well in their effort to wipe out discrimination based on poundage. I doubt that there will come a day in my lifetime when a 300-pounder will grace the centerfold of Playboy magazine, but I’m a short person, so what do I know?

There’s a Spanish proverb that says women, melons and cheese ought to be chosen by weight, and perhaps that day is in the offing.

At least the fat is in the fire.