Fat Hippie Recruited

Nick and I made it to town before lunch today, a bit loved up and enjoying the autumn sunshine so warm that we went without coats. Outside of the library, we were approached by a young woman wearing a pink hat, peace symbol on her cheek. She offered me a rose. I was a bit bamboozled. Was she drunk, or manic, or (worse) selling something? She complimented me on my Billy Bragg tee shirt and said I would definitely be into peace and get where she was coming from, she was into ‘food peace’. It was starting to look really bad, and Nick was already edging away with his book bag.

Now, I should tell you that I have a face for salespeople. It combines withdrawn, grumpy and aggressive and I find that if I use it alongside a firm ‘NO’ it puts off the most determined of utilities reps in a millisecond – best for them, and best for me. I was too late to use it this time. I had somehow engaged, and given the stall that she pointed out with the link to the Coventry Peace Festival, I was starting to relax. She asked us if we had weighing scales and asked how we felt about them. I lied and said that we do not (we do, but they go unused). She suggested that we might feel apprehensive, tense, and have low self esteem, but we wouldn’t feel like that about her pink fluffy scales. It was then that Nick abandoned me.

I found myself persuaded to get on the scales which read motivational statements where the numbers should have been. For me it was ‘you are perfect’. Then came the rub. Would I like to come to educational classes where I could learn about food, not about slimming but about a new way of enjoying all foods?  It was to be run by a voluntary sector organisation in conjunction with the NHS. My health was being promoted. I took the leaflets and the proffered rose.

 Half an hour later, when I met up with Nick, we talked about it. He had been quite put out by the ‘low self esteem’ bit, but I had been properly outreached in a way that I wouldn’t have been if the same dietician in a blue suit had said ‘you are overweight, stop eating cake’. I had been correctly identified in the street as a fat hippie who never got into eating spinach and beans. I was almost tempted to try out the classes.

Then, we went for fish and chips, and I felt so much better.

The rose looks very nice in my kitchen window though.