Coonridge Digest: No place to hide

Greetings from the Ridge.
Maybe you’ve flinched like I have when you’ve seen the clips on the nightly news. It’ll be a story on Obesity in America! or FDA Signs Death Warrant for the Overweight! or most recently Your Friends Can Make You Fat! And invariably they’ll accompany these screaming headlines with butt shots.
Sorry, but there’s no more delicate way to put it. The shot will be cropped to show an enormous stomach bouncing down a city street or more likely an out-sized derriere jiggling down the sidewalk, resembling two cats fighting in a gunnysack. The news anchor will intone, “A new report released today says that the average American is 400 pounds overweight, dripping wet.” There’ll be no faces shown, no other method of identification other than the sight and sometimes shape of an overweight person’s rear end.
I sit there hoping to God that my brand of stretch pants doesn’t show up, and I’m bothered by certain questions. Like, are these folks consulted before their rump is broadcast during prime time? Do they give their permission to have their least-promising acreage spread out on the evening news? If you need permission to show a close-up of a person’s face, are their similar statutes regarding the back forty? Or are butts considered to be in the public domain?
Of course I’ve considered the idea that these might be professional models. I read where some folks specialize in modeling hands, and a few lithe models with especially attractive feet can make a good living just doing Dr. Scholl’s commercials. Is there such a person as a butt model? Do they audition? Do they work out and keep their tail fluffy to keep the job? Does a good butt model have an agent? A butt-ler? Do they keep a file of butt shots to submit to prospective news and ad agencies?
And is there legal recourse if you see your hiney on CNN? Are back bumpers copyrighted and do they have rights? Let’s say you’re sitting there in the middle of your supper of fried chicken wings with blue cheese dressing and you see something that belongs to you bouncing across CBS news. Let’s say you choke on the chicken wing, fall face forward into the blue cheese, and nobody misses you until the Sunday choir is missing an alto. Can your family claim damages? Can the choir charge you for a replacement? And will the undertaker be able to pull all the blue cheese out of your nose before the visitation?
Herb and I often play a game as we try to identify the ample rear ends undulating across the TV screen. Of course these are probably stock shots taken hundreds of miles away but there’s something comforting and more than a little bit humorous about putting local names on faraway butts. Herb says it’s not so much the size and shape that tip off the bottom’s owner, but the flounce, the bounce, and the swagger. He says that a really good keister will have a sense of style as it rolls from side to side. The man has obviously made a lifelong study of bottom rolling to hear him talk. He claims that a person’s tailgate is as distinctive as the fins on a 1963 Cadillac or the front grill of an Edsel.
I’d never wear tight jeans in public, and only confine my indoor use of Levis to houses without mirrors, but I do have a plan. It may not be the highest fashion, but since we quit raising chickens I’ve missed the egg money and maybe I could win a lawsuit if I could somehow positively I.D. my bottom in a court of law. I’m thinking of taking a marker and drawing a large black “X” on the rear of every outfit I own. Yes, it may cause stares at the mall and I’ll have to cuff a pair of old ears if Herb thinks I’m drawing him a target, but think of the money! Think of the exposure!
To try out the plan, I wore my aqua pants suit to church with a big black “X” marked across the seat. We are Methodist so the congregation was polite. No one said a thing. They waited until they got home then started calling each other on the phone. Next week I’m going to try it out on the Presbyterians and if I get no reaction there I’ll put the final test to the Pentecostals. If the test passes muster with the charismatic group then I’ll know I’ve got a winning idea and someday the royalty checks will come rolling in like, well, like the shot they get of my rear.
There’s a news story on right now about which part of the country harbors the most overweight people. Their cover shot is of a large woman, shot from the stomach down, eating what looks like Cheetos on a park bench. I hope she gets up and “X” marks the spot.  I’ll be rich.
You ever in Coonridge, stop by. We may not answer the door, but you’ll enjoy the trip.