It pains me to say, but at some indeterminate point in the past, I traded in my washboard stomach for a top-loader. It’s like I accidentally left my six-pack in the car and it got too warm, exploding into an Orson Wellian pear-shaped flesh balloon. –Not that I need to be buried in a piano case or anything, but as a middle-aged archetype, I am admittedly soft in places that were previously not places.

Being fat doesn’t really concern me; four out of five dentists surveyed are also fat. What does concern me is Society. Society tells me I should look like Rihanna. It is obvious that I will never be mistaken for Rihanna. Anyone who has seen me in the locker room at the Y knows I can’t dance. But even though Society barely knows me and hardly ever calls, it does make me somewhat embarrassed at my modest rotundity.

Sure, I could go on a diet, but if you do your research you will find that diets are downright un-American. They advocate such things as “physical activity” or “self-control” or “personal responsibility.” Blah, blah, blah. What are they to tell me how to live my life? They are in direct violation of my constitutional right to eat Ho-Ho’s and hatefully discriminate against my lifestyle as a Sedentary-American.

So instead of flabophobic right-wing fascist diets, I have decided upon the one thing that can help me feel better about myself while simultaneously exhibiting my unfettered Americanism:

Punitive damages.

It is obvious the food industry is responsible for my Chris Christie-like form, so I am going to sue their pants off until they feel like they’re in one of those dreams where they’re in a public place and suddenly realize they are not wearing any pants.

Regrettably, I am too late to join the recently settled class-action lawsuit against Nutella where a California woman claimed she didn’t realize that the sugar-laden chocolatey goodness she was feeding her kids for breakfast every morning was actually, as the required government label indicates, a sugar-laden chocolatey goodness. But there are any number of evil, deep-pocketed corporations that do the same thing and thus are easy targets for padding my 401k thingy.

For example, I have it on good authority that the strawberry Kool-Aid I have with my Ho-Ho’s does not contain any strawberries. And the brown sugar-cinnamon Pop Tarts I have for dessert are scandalously chocked full of–get this–brown sugar. And this may shock the more sensitive reader, but I have recently discovered that Crunchberries are, in fact, not real berries. It’s like advertisers sell us these things just to make money.

So I take heart in the fact that much of my ingestion will stop my heart. My death is bound to result in my financial independence. Lawsuits are popping up all over the place against fast-food McMagnates in which slenderly-challenged people contest that the reason they are so slenderly-challenged is because the multiple double bacon cheeseburgers they consume do not have labels that say

WARNING: Repeated consumption of this product will result in a physical appearance similar to that of a shmoo.

Unfortunately, many of these cases are thrown out like six-year-old mayonnaise. But it’s because they are faulty in that they don’t go far enough. It’s not just the fast-food McMagnates; we must fight to bring down the SuperDuper Supercenter Supermarkets. If you haven’t been to a Supercenter Supermarket lately, I should inform you that they are bursting with aisles and aisles and aisles of nothing but obesity-causing implements they innocently label “foodstuff.” How have we as a society put up with such corporate irresponsibility for so long? It’s as if they want us to eat. But we mustn’t stop there.

Bargain warehouses like Sam’s Club, Costco, and GFS sell Oreos by the crate, leaving us no choice but to eat them in one sitting lest they loose their scrumptious crunchiness and their ability to absorb the cups of half-and-half into which they are dunked. But shutting down this Axis of Victual is still not enough.

I submit to you that the farmers must be stopped! Completely disregarding our communal well-being, these agricultural villains grow all sorts of plants and animals that are manufactured into tasty delectables. They are a public menace, I tell you.

And what of our employers? Big Business exhibits remarkable indifference toward the health of their own employees by encouraging–nay, requiring–them to work for money. And we all know where that money goes. While it is often used to simply purchase drugs and alcohol, many use it to do little more than buy groceries.

All of us, if we are honest with ourselves, have exchanged our money for food at one time or another. It just goes to show how insidious this problem of meal consumption is. Corporate depravity in this regard is running rampant and must be punished.

Since no one else will, I have personally made the decision to take my generous derrière into my own hands. I vow to watch more daytime TV commercials so I can find a good lawyer. That is, as soon as I get dressed. I have suddenly realized I am not wearing any pants.