Cold-Hearted

[Trigger warning for serious fat hatred.]

I have read some unbelievable fat hatred in my day, but this piece by Esther Cepeda in the Chicago Sun-Times just about takes the motherfucking cake. Whoa, hey, whoa! Give that cake back! Cuz I'm fat, get it?! And all fatties do is sit around eating WHOLE CAKES all day! HA HA!

Oh, and force businesses to turn up air conditioning in the summer, apparently:

Join me in rallying against a society that pretends morbid obesity is socially acceptable. Some of us would like to enjoy summer.

What am I getting at here? I'm cold! C-O-L-D!!

Cold on a sunny morning when I have to wrap myself like a mummy in my three morning newspapers to stave off hypothermia from the overblown air conditioning that Metra needs to keep its well-padded clientele from melting in its packed cars.

Cold on a pleasantly warm day when I must wear my parka into the supermarket, which blasts the A/C to keep the store at 50 degrees so that all the over-stimulated and over-served customers can buy food without breaking a sweat.

Cold on a hot summer night when my restaurant's water glasses have icicles forming on them because all the already-health-challenged chow hounds are working up a sweat while overdoing it.

Hey, it's not just me. I've seen thick, sturdy women and men -- innocently wearing tank tops or shorts on a hot day -- walk into these same places and immediately shrug their shoulders and cradle their elbows in the universal body language for "Whoa -- why is it so darned cold in here?!"

You'd think that Ms. Smarty Logicpants would use the same awesome powers of deduction that led her to conclude "overbearing air conditioning is because of fat people" to question the solidity of that reasoning, if FAT PEOPLE ARE COLD, TOO.

I am constantly cold in air conditioning, and I was even when I wasn't fat. And I am no special fucking snowflake. Lots of fat people are just as cold as is Cepeda in these situations, where, I'd like to point out, air conditioning gets blasted all summer because the doors are constantly opening and closing and letting in 90°+ air.

Commuter trains also blast air (when it works) because if the trains break down or are held up, as they often are, the air doesn't run, and if it's not already Baltic in there to begin with, passengers are roasting in no time. Grocery stores blast air because their many of their employees are situated by the constantly-opening front doors, as are the customers while waiting in a check-out line, and the rest of the store has to be too cold to keep that area comfortable. Restaurants blast air because they'd rather have a few customers be too cool, especially during off-hours, than a dining room full of uncomfortably hot customers who don't feel like eating anything. When areas get full of people all at once, the room heats up way more quickly than AC can cool it down—unless it's already on full blast. Et cetera.

Restaurants, gyms, high rises, libraries, movie theaters—they're all cold, and there's always a reason.

I'm not Professor HVAC over here; this stuff is self-evident to anyone who takes the two fucking seconds it requires to sort out why it is that businesses may overdo the AC besides the truly laughable contention that it's attributable to "accommodating fatties." Especially when accommodation of fatties is hardly a top priority of Corporate America.

[H/T to Shaker KatherineSpins.]

Contact the Sun-Times here.