Many of you may be wondering - am I a fat kid? I was certainly a portly pre-teen, but have since slimmed down. Am I off the squad? Alternatively, you may be thinking, I'm a relatively overweight middle-aged man with three kids, a variable rate mortgage, and a calendar of Food Network Stars (mmm...Ina Gartner...) - am I included in this elite crew? The answers to these haunting questions lie with the survey of attributes enumerated below. Like any reasonably good diagnostic manual, you do not need to possess all of these qualities to meet the qualifications of a fat kid. So fear not, skinny older folks - its not your size, its what you do with it.
1) Fat Kids are not actually overweight children. Fat Kid is a mentality, a world view, an epistemology. Like Christianity. Or Yuppiness. Or Scientology. Or Responsibility. Fat Kids, therefore, come in all shapes, sizes, ages, and stages.
2) If you are a Fat Kid, you think about your next meal while you are eating. For example, over a delicious brunch of eggs florentine, you may ask your dining companion, "How do you feel about grilled shrimp and asparagus for dinner?" If your dining companion is also a Fat Kid, a stimulating and lively conversation will follow. If your dining companion is not a Fat Kid, leave the table immediately, but not until you have thrown his eggwhite tofurkey farce of a meal in his face.
3) Fat Kids can eat well in any dining establishment, including the dorm room of an unsuspecting undergraduate boy. DO NOT confuse Fat Kids with Foodies - there is not an ounce of snobbery in the body of the Fat Kid, just disdain for those who don't care enough to find the good stuff on the menu. Fat Kids know there is a time and place for everything, and the time and place for fried dough is the state fair. The time and place for croutons is 3am at a house party of a strange coworker. The time and place for finger sandwiches is Easter Tea and Bridal Showers. The time and place for lobster is whenever you can get your hands on it.
4) Fat Kids need a little extra time with their menus. Since there is always something decent and delicious to be had, the Fat Kid must find it. Phrases like "No Substitutions" are paralyzing to the Fat Kid. On the other hand, the Fat Kid will order the meat loaf without a second thought just to get his hands on those delicious herbed garlic mashed potatoes.
5) Grocery stores are important places for Fat Kids. Shopping with a Fat Kid is not a stick-to-the-list, in-and-out-in-twenty-minutes kind of experience. Because Fat Kids actually enjoy grocery shopping. The sights, the sounds, the possibility of randomly soliciting the opinions of unsuspecting strangers, the thought of future careers in deli work. I once knew two Fat Kids who referred to their favorite grocery store as Mecca because of its magnificent bounty and the pilgrimage it took to get there.
6) Fat Kids like it when others enjoy food too. This can be manifested in a variety of ways: cooking for friends, suggesting entres at well-known eateries, forcing others to take a bite from her fork.
7) Two Fat Kids together can bring about the holy grail of Fat Kid ordering: the split. No longer are you forced to order just one menu item. You can get the steak and the salmon, the pasta and the sushi. Restaurants and take-out places designed for the split are great for the Fat Kid, but beware of non-Fat Kids who have no idea how to order and fuck it up for everyone. Sharing someone's soggy Buddha Delight vegetables while they shovel your sesame chicken into their gaping maw is enough to make any Fat Kid sick.
8) Fat Kids know and respect the fact that they have a limited number of meals in a lifetime. Eating is not something you have to do to sustain life - it is something that sustains life because it is inherantly valuable. Grabbing a quick bagel before heading for the bar is not on the agenda; the bar can always wait while the Fat Kid drinks with dinner.
