I was at the store the other day and saw a DVD of Gilligan's Island. As I looked at the picture, I thought, "Hey! The Skipper isn't as fat as I remember."
And look at this picture. He doesn't look that fat, does he? Maybe compared to Gilligan and the Professor who were both bean poles, he looked big, but compared to all the fatties I see everywhere, Skipper actually looks, well, about average.
I have to laugh whenever a news program is talking about obesity and the camera is panning on some street somewhere catching the torsos and butts of all of these fat people. I tell you one thing. I see a camera filming my middle, I'm gonna go kick the camera man.
Not too long ago I was looking at a photograph taken maybe twenty or twenty five years ago. The picture is of my extended family. And here all of us are-mostly skinny, young with extremely permed hair. Ugh. And there is my cousin. I will call her "Betty." Betty was always the fat cousin. We loved her, and she was fat. That's just how it was. As I looked at this picture of her, though, I thought, "Gee, she doesn't look that big." My suspicion is not that her size changed. How could it? It's a photograph (although interesting enough, Betty is now skinny. She had that gastro-intestinal surgery). It is my perception which has changed along with the size of my clothes. As my clothing size has increased, my perception of what is "big" has gotten bigger. Oh, I'm not any huge honkin' thing. Or maybe I am. Could I wear the Skipper's clothes? Could I be the fat character on the microcosm of the socio-economic study of human relationships and stupidity which takes place on a deserted Island? Hmm. I wonder.
I know there are more important things to worry about. Like why is it that they could build a little car, nice "huts", and an electrical source for their radio and yet could not fix a freakin' hole in the boat? Or how Mary Ann could crank out those coconut cream pies so well with no known source of sugar or eggs. Or why Gilligan never went for Ginger. He obviously liked her, as they had plenty of gags about him hitting his head on a pole when she'd go after him to get something. Actually, I see Gilligan and Mary Ann getting together. Both kind of young and little. And, oh wow, Mary Ann had the cutest figure. I sort of thought the Professor and Ginger could get together-beauty and the brain. But what about the Skipper? No one for Fatty? That ain't right. If it were "Jennifer's Island" instead of Gilligan's, I'd have to even it out. The Skipper has to have a love interest. Maybe her name is Brandy. Maybe she wears a chain made of silver from the north of Spain. Maybe she gave up her job, got on a boat, and found her man using a detecting device she had taped on his thigh while he was sleeping one night in the room behind the bar in whatever port she worked. He never removed the little device because he was too fat to reach it.
She found the island, and she and the Skipper had a nice reunion. There was a nice wedding with coconut cream pies at the reception. Maybe there were even a few little Skippers running around a few years later.
What can I say? I'm a romance novelist at heart. I just love to hook people up and have the happy ending.
Two songs today to commemorate Skipper's love interest and being fat. Oh, how I love to have a soundtrack.
