The Fat, The Obese

“I don’t know.” It is next to impossible to get Ugandan to say those words. It was a simple trip from Kisimenti to T1 Club. Special Hire Taxi Driver was asked not once but thrice, if he knew where T1 Club in Industrial Area was and he answered in the affirmative.

So into the cab I hopped and no sooner had we turned into Acaccia Avenue, it was all too obvious that Special Hire Taxi Driver did not know where he was going. He kept on trying to talk to me so I feigned an incoming call on my cell phone and totally blanked him.

At the Nakumatt round-about he pulled over and tried to interrupt my ‘call’ but I didn’t give him the daylight or should I say night-time since it was dark? The conversation that followed went along these lines.

Special Hire Taxi Driver: “Boss where did you say you were going?”
TB: “T1 Club”
Special Hire Taxi Driver: “Where do you say it was again?”

I ignored him so he took a gamble and kerbed-crawled his cab down to Shell Jinja Road whilst giving me glancing looks in the rear view mirror in the hope that I would bail him out. I didn’t and I didn’t help him either when the cab spluttered to a halt four cars before the traffic lights. It had run out of fuel. Making matters worse, he had the audacity to ask for half the fare so he could go get some fuel. Is the any need to guess what I told him? I think not.

I am not into healthy eating. I like my meat, my fat, more red meat and more fat. And I like it deep fried too. I am not fat so I see no need of going to the gym like fat, overweight and obese do and who have only themselves to blame for being gluttons when they were kids. Just because they put a bowl full of fried chicken or whatever it was in front of them, it didn’t mean finish everything! Rather, it meant, eat just enough to quench your hunger.

I have a number of Fat and Obese Friends who spend up to 40k plus a week for the privilege of going to a hotel, stripping down and wrapping the lower half of their fat and obese bodies into a blue hospital type bed sheet and then locking themselves in a small room full of steam for a good hour or so.

Then they realize that it was not such a good idea being all locked up in a small room with more steam in it than a pressure cooker has, so they take themselves outside and wander about while slapping their fat and obese bellies that are full to the brim with toxins and cholesterol while they think: “If I don’t cut my weight down to TB’s size, I will be in a coffin within months.”

If anybody wants to go and see fat and obese people wallowing around, looking like sumo wrestlers and are on the brink of going to sleep forever in a coffin, go to the club near the quarry in Muyenga.

Like I said, whilst I am not into healthy eating, I do keep fit. Last year I did four marathons – London, Boston, New York and Berlin. It is no easy feat for a lot of preparation is involved. Come marathon day, I always have to be focused, to channel all my thoughts and energies into getting past the finish line. The one marathon I didn’t finish was in Tokyo in 2010. Umeme decided to load shed and off went the DStv.

Many people think that sitting there with a television in front of you, legs resting on the pouch, a beer in one hand, remote control in the other while watching a marathon is something that comes easy. It’s not because there is always that disturbance from the kitchen, that irritating noise of pots and pans banging together as your better half slaves away to make you a meal to cure the hangover.

Like Fat and Obese Friends, there are some people who perhaps don’t know that there is something called Supersport on DStv where you don’t have to break sweat to be in a marathon. Joseph Walusimbi is a friend. When he is not with his hommies at Shell Club, Walusimbi, tortures himself by jogging up the hills of Kololo! And usually when he is doing that self-inflicting pain thing, I am tucking into a metallic plate that is full of deep fried pork, fried cabbage, tomatoes and spices.

And there is Richard Byarugaba too. He has taken the self-inflicting pain thing a step too far. He one Sunday decided to jog all the way from Kampala to Entebbe. OPP and I were supposed to be with him to give him support and NO, we were not going to jog along with him – we were in a car. Anyway, OPP and I made it as far Najja, saw a nice pub and that was it for us. And if I recall, Byarugaba, and not content with the pain from the jog to Entebbe, decided to jog up Mount Elgon! I bet he didn’t find any pork or beer kafunda’s while he was up there.

That said, it is only three months to go to the London summer Olympics. I don’t know if Uganda intends to field a team – I think, I am sure they will do but like most Ugandan teams that have been sent to the Olympics, The Commonwealth Games or the World Championships, I guess there will be more administrators including a minister along with their wives, daughters, first cousins and jajja’s than actual athletes.

But you really have to ask yourselves, is there any point of sending a team to compete in the Olympics? Is it really worth spending money we don’t have on a team that we all know is not going to come back with any bling? Uganda’s contribution to the Olympics is to attend the opening ceremony, take part in the opening heats of whatever sport it is that they are taking part in, then get knocked out. They will then spend the rest of the games visiting friends in East London, shopping for DVD players, cell phones, plasma screens and iPods or trying to figure out a way in which they can vanish into the system.

But like Fat and Obese Friends who really should know by now that they will never lose weight, Walusimbi and Byarugaba who want to jog up Kololo hill and Mount Elgon, there really is nothing tangible that you are doing except, stressing and inflicting undue pain on yourselves.

For example, do you honestly think Ugandan Athlete wants to go though all those heats for some bling? They don’t and that is why they don’t stress themselves. They aspire to get eliminated in the first heat so that they can get on with shopping.

Tomorrow I am going to take myself down to Sports Betting to place a bet for 100k that Uganda wins nothing and in the meantime when the Olympics are on, Walusimbi, Byarugaba please come to my crib when the marathon is on, and I will show you how I do it. Obese and Fat Friends are also invited. I mean, why pay 40k per week to be locked in a ‘pressure cooker’ in a bid to lose weight when I can put you out of your misery by pumping those fat bellies of yours with more fatty and greasy toxins to send you to an early grave?