Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SATURDAY, April 14, 1990                   TAG: 9004140098
SECTION: EXTRA                    PAGE: E-1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Ben Beagle
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

POLLSTERS ARE LOOKING FOR A FAT LIP

For the third straight year, according to the Associated Press, the division has found that Wisconsin adults are, well, just fatter than any other adults in the country.

Oh, they say "obese," but what they mean is fat - lard, can pinch a lot more than an inch, flab.

The director of this study said people in Wisconsin and other Upper Midwest states get flabby from eating cheese, butter, ice cream, bacon, sausages and bratwursts.

If I were a well-fed resident of Wisconsin, I would be seriously questioning the use of tax funds to make a whole lot of adults feel bad about the way they bulge.

OK. So I bulge a little bit myself. I think I can be trusted to be impartial here.

The thing that really gets me crazy is that they did this thing by telephone.

This is a lot different from a call from one of those student boiler rooms back at your old college - in which a cheerleader who wasn't even born when you were a senior tells you how bad the library needs money.

No, sir. This is personal. Probably degrading. I can hear it now:

"Hello, there, this is the Wisconsin Fat Survey. If you're skinny and have a push button phone, push seven and finish your yogurt. If you're roly-poly and pudgy, put down that bratwurst and listen up."

Apparently, the average Wisconsin resident calmly answers such questions.

I would like to think that Virginians - in the courtly tradition of Patrick Henry, George Washington and yours truly here - would reply:

"Yeah? Well take your stupid survey somewhere else, fathead. My waistline is my own business. What are you? Some kind of pervert?

"Next thing you'll be asking all these kinky questions. Like Ruth Westheimer, right?."

Then, they really got mean and said that Wisconsin women are more likely to be fat than Wisconsin men.

You can destroy a woman with stuff like that:

"Well, poor old Charity is in an institution. Some idiot called her on the phone and asked her if she was fat. Carl said she just lost it.

"I'm taking her some bratwurst, cheese, ice cream, butter, bacon and sausage on Sunday if you'd like to go along."

You'll have to excuse me now.

It's time to turn the bacon, check the potatoes, butter the English muffins and start the water for the grits.

I think I'll have the eggs over light this morning.