How About a Little Personal Responsibility?

As you all know, I recently got a Roku. Well, much like a TiVo, the Roku will make certain recommendations for me based on the things that I viewed before. It was doing such a great job, that I actually considered it my own personal television assistant.

Then, it recommended the documentary “Super Size Me” and I nearly fired its ass.

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“What do you mean, this is bad for me? Look, It has lettuce in it.”

I hate Super Size Me because I think that documentary is everything that is wrong with America today.

If you don’t know, ‘Super Size Me’ is an expose that came out about ten years ago. The main premise was a man who set out to prove that if he ate McDonald’s every day, for every fucking meal, he would become a giant fat ass. About half way in, his doctor recommended he stop. He took this as proof for his amazing hypothesis.

A high calorie, heavy saturated fat diet, with virtually no vitamin or minerals, is not good for you. Shocker.

I’m going to be honest here. I’ve never been a big ‘foodie’. I don’t like to try new things and I don’t consider eating a pastime. I consider it an annoying necessity that I frequently forget to do. Generally, I eat about once a day and that once a day is usually an orange or some pretzel sticks. I never have food cravings. Instead, I have dizzy spells that remind me that I’m about to die of starvation. But even at my absolute hungriest, there is nothing on the McDonalds menu that I would willingly order. Everything they make just tastes like greasy sawdust to me. But I’m going to go ahead and defend McDonalds anyway.

Why? Because McDonalds is me. We both give people what they want, even when it might not be good for them. Whether we’re dishing out high trans-fat fries, or a portion of hatred for humanity in general, we are the same. We are the favorites of hung over college students. A McMuffin with a side of a post about excessive drinking is the ideal cure for over indulging. We validate America. We tell them it’s ok to not be healthy and wholesome. Instead, we tell them it’s ok to enjoy yourself and say fuck the consequences.

Then, we deal with the backlash. McDonalds gets sued on a regular basis because of people complaining that their food made them fat, that their coffee was too fucking hot, that their food is addictive.

I get regular hate mail from people telling me that I should be more forgiving, that I come across as too angry, that I should change my opinion because it’s too harsh, that I’m stereotyping, or that I used ‘they’re’ incorrectly.

If our dissidents had their way, McDonalds would be a salad bar and my page would be a mommy blog with G-rated humor about my kid’s potty training exploits. Because that way, everyone would have the choice to be healthy and wholesome forced on them.

And they would all get to avoid personal responsibility.

Let me make this clear world, you are responsible for what you put in your mouth and you are responsible for what you put in your head. Of all these ‘McDonalds made me fat” lawsuits, I have never read one where Ronald McDonald drove to someone’s house, put a gun to their head, and forced them to eat a McRib sandwich.

Of all the pissed of church ladies who have come to my page, I have never gone to someone’s house, held them hostage, typed in essaalroc.com and forced them to read through my posts.

They pull up at the drive-thru on their own and order the #1 supersized, and they read my page without any prompting from me. But they still complain.

To that I say ‘how about a little personal responsibility?” If your pants don’t fit you anymore, don’t blame McDonalds. Blame yourself for overindulging. If my opinions make you angry and offended, don’t send me hate mail. Instead, ask yourself why you would go to a page that specifically informs you ‘posts on this site may be factually incorrect, delusional, mean spirited…or all of the above’ in the header.

That isn’t a joke people. That’s a 100% accurate disclaimer. But I still get emails from idiots who are upset that my posts are delusional, mean spirited, or inaccurate. Um, fucking duh.

“Duh’, is just what I say about the stupid movie “Super Size Me.” Eating fast food every day for a month can damage your health? That’s not a hypothesis. That’s a known fact. Anyone who doesn’t know that is either in denial or is looking for lawsuit material.

Here’s the thing people. You can have a world where everything you eat is wholesome and everything you read is agreeable and suitable for all audiences.

Or you can have a world where you get to operate that precious free will you were born with and choose to occasionally make the wrong choice.

You won’t be any slimmer for eating at McDonalds, and you probably won’t be any smarter for reading my page. But if you go to either place with an open mind, I can guarantee you’ll enjoy it anyway.

God bless America, and God bless McDonalds. Because freedom applies, even when that freedom makes you make bad choices.

Thank you for allowing me to be one of those bad choices.