Every once in a while, I'll wander to the far end of the meat isle, to the dusty area in from of the last cooler. Maybe it's morbid, but I'm periodically curious about what the stuff that goes into hot dogs looks like before it's all ground up. There, in the lurid green fluorescence, are smartly-wrapped packages of pig ears, cow tongue, chicken liver, goat pancreas, and other detestable delectables. I used to wonder who bought that stuff.

Another mystery solved.

This degree of obesity isn't caused by anything from a fast-food restaurant, regardless of gross volume. It isn't snack foods or milk shakes or even entire tubs of margarine scooped out with fried cheese. To exceed the weight limit for vertical stripes, you have to embrace the maxim "you are what you eat" and chow on by-products that are at least 99 percent lard.

... toss out that bacon and drink the "juice."

The added bonus of such a diet, thankfully undetectable in this medium, is a body odor that would choke maggots. It's that unmistakable "fat boy" smell that comes from all those calories he burns just sitting up, oozing a gravy-thick sweat, more lipid than urea, that congeals between the rolls in his back.

Enjoy your lunch. <g>