VII

Gluttony

Those who are blessed with a high metabolism and a love for food often don't have to worry about the ramifications of gaining weight when indulging themselves. While this is an attribute the young can enjoy, the metabolism tends to slow down with age. This is especially true for those who live a sedentary lifestyle. Unfortunately for Rachel Raymond, her days of having a slow metabolism were only part of her existence. She was a large woman in her late 30s who simply loved to eat. Because she refused to exercise or increase her physical activity throughout any given day, her love of food was apparent as she packed on the weight. By her thirty-seventh birthday, Rachel weighed more than four hundred pounds while standing at five feet and five inches tall. The problems of gaining weight contributed greatly to her constant knee and leg issues, which were bad enough to help her receive disability payments from the government. It also forced her to waddle as she walked.

It was late on a Sunday night, and Rachel was starting to feel sorry for herself. She had no friends to speak of, especially since she exuded a poor attitude toward life and had a way of making everyone around her feel terrible. Those who knew Rachel often talked about how she was "rotten to the core." Her sense of ultra-entitlement, snarky comments, and downright rudeness had pushed away everyone she had ever met. Aside from her little chihuahua, Max, everyone tried to stay out of her way.

That night, Rachel decided she would take herself out to a nice dinner and enjoy her own company. After all, that was the best kind of evening for her. Rachel had a very low tolerance for people in general and often found comfort by doing things by herself around town. She wasn't ashamed to be alone, and why should she? Rachel absolutely enjoyed her own company. She had no interest in having friends as she believed them to be nothing but time-wasting trouble. As she slid one arm through her coat, she thought about taking herself out to a nice, Italian restaurant. Rachel often preferred spaghetti to most other forms of meals, and the new Italian place, Tony's, was just a mile from her house.

As she zipped up the coat across her bulbous stomach, she looked down at Max. He had been staring at her with eyes that seemed to ask, "where are you going?"

"Sorry, Max. You need to stay here," she said trying to bend over as much as her stomach would allow.

Whimper.

"I know. It would probably be safe since we're not getting Chinese, but we don't want to take a chance you'll be put on the grill, do we?" she said, chuckling to herself.

Rachel was seated in the middle of the busy restaurant by an attractive hostess. Immediately, Rachel assumed that the hostess was quite familiar with tables, or at least, dancing on them. It was a clean place, and the smell of fresh bread, garlic, and other spices wafted in the air, making her mouth water almost the instant she walked into the establishment. Rachel quickly began flipping through the menu until she came across the page displaying the house spaghetti and other kinds of pasta. Although she knew that pictures often don't depict the reality of the dish, the visage of the pasta still made her stomach growl. It sounded as though a great, unholy beast was ready to rip from her abdomen ready to run down its prey. The grumbling was so loud that the people sitting next to her at another table turned their heads.

"What?" Rachel responded with a rude tone to their visual inquiries.

"Eat yer damn meal." The onlookers turned their heads away as they could tell Rachel was already becoming upset.

After what seemed like an eternity for her, although it was only three minutes, Rachel's waiter finally arrived at her table. He was a teenager, probably a junior in high school, dressed all in black. His face was plagued with zits, which made her feel uncomfortable about dining in the restaurant. To her, the waiter looked like he was a few puffs into his third bowl of weed for the night. Then again, she always assumed the worse of everyone she meets. This was one of the biggest reasons why she had no friends.