i thought i'd heard it all.
airlines are becoming increasingly alarmed about overweight passengers, as the increase in average weight is throwing off their fuel usage calculations and potentially endangering lives by weighing the plane down with a greater load than it was intended to carry.
funeral homes are running into problems because super-sized, uh, customers are not fitting within the confines of the usual repositories.
but this story from houston may take the cake (which could be part of the problem).
there is nothing that i am going to say that will add any meaningful insights into our morbid and obsessive relationship with consumption. while i have theories as to why this is becoming so prevalent, they really aren't groundbreaking.
still, stories like this, with their hints of the tragic and the absurd, never fail to fascinate and appall me. as someone who's had some pretty up-close experiences with various types of eating disorders, i know that food has moved well beyond its role as necessary sustenance and has become emblematic of many other things.