Excerpt from “A Bush in Hand”
Ending a meeting on a sour note was something Abelard did not believe to be good for morale. After the short break and the public, summary execution which sent Badger and Taylor to outplacement hell, Abelard turned the crowd’s attention to lighter, more amusing and potentially very rewarding distractions. How, he asked, to no one in particular, could they lever Pharma to ever greater accomplishments? Always a step ahead, Abelard had asked his favourite to prepare an action plan. Annabelle Pucker, a grim faced lady, had but one iron principle; money uber alles. She rose from her chair like a ballistic missile and strode to the front, wielding her laptop like a throwable weapon.
Breaking the ice was something Annabelle felt was best left to icebreakers and she tore directly into her performance. “What have you eaten for breakfast this morning,” she demanded, before adding, “and only the fat people will respond? Also, you must not leave out any details such as high or low fat, with or without butter and so on.” Abelard would have wished to have only lean and hungry people on his team but was constrained by harsh statistics to also include the fat, the growing ever fatter and the obese. He did skew his group a little against the trend and that only because he had pull with Milly, with less than 30% fat as opposed to the 54% national average.
“Two cheese and cherry Danish, toasted, with butter and a huge high fat cappuccino,” the slimmest of the big ones said with clear defiance. The poorly shaped were just as aware as those who looked in from the outside that they had a problem, but no one was going to tell them how to run their lives. So there! Indeed, whereas almost any advice, pleasant or otherwise was usually fair game, it was never done to so much as whisper anything even remotely connected with fat to a stricken person. Loved ones, perhaps especially loved ones could only watch and suffer in silence.
“Do you ever exercise,” Annabelle more accused than asked, as only the morally superior thin can?
“Oh, yes, very regularly,” porky replied, evidently happy to have been asked an easy question.
“And when was the last time you actually did,” Annabelle shot back, growing surprisingly confident?
“Well, uh, with all the work I’ve had to catch up on and some personal stuff,” a moment’s pause, eyes to the ceiling in a pensive pose, “didn’t really have time since I can’t remember when, but I’ll be for sure going to the Salsa class, um, let’s see, yes, next week.”
“That’s all I need,” Annabelle snapped when she was sure her shill was preparing to stretch his defence as well as try her limited patience.
“What is most apparent,” Annabelle began to expostulate as would only be expected of one with an advanced degree in theoretical astrophysics, “from our fat colleague’s self admitted lamentable inability to balance calories coming in with calories going out,” revulsion seeping to the surface, “is the infantile nature of his disorder. He recognizes that his lifestyle is harming not only his health but, I strongly suspect, also his sexual diversions and he can do absolutely nothing about it. He is fighting a forlorn battle against the formidable and irresistible allied forces of sloth and gluttony. He is obsessed with food and revolted by physical exercise. He deeply resents, as only the obsessed can, anyone who would venture sensible advice.” She paused for a moment to be sure that everyone had time to digest her first proposition which she would need to buttress her subsequent strategy.
“Annabelle,” a thin person suddenly intervened, to everyone’s surprise but Annabelle’s, since she had prior to the meeting set it up that way, “why have sloth and gluttony become obsessions?”
“Very good question,” Annabelle almost gushed, inasmuch as she could exercise such an underused faculty. “For my answer to have any meaning everyone here must acceptDarwin’s theory of Evolution. Is there anyone who doubts that this is the most sensible explanation of how we got to where we are now,” she solicited, as a professor might to a suspiciously dozy class? Although many still clung to a superstition based account, undoubtedly some of the very people in the room, not a hand was raised.
“Good,” she said, gleefully, or so it seemed from the way she rubbed her hands together, for her truculent demeanour did not actually send any such signal, “now we can proceed to the second proposition, that our chubby friend here,” pointing to her hero, “is pre-programmed to behave as he does in the presence of food and to jealously crave the absence of physical exertion. Not very long ago, which I intend to mean too short a period for any significant evolutionary adaptation to have taken place, humans never had enough to eat and were compelled to devote all of their waking hours to find what little they could. When they were fortunate enough to kill a large animal or find a rich wild berry and seed harvest, they ate as much as they could and slept for as long as possible. If any of you have dogs you will notice the same behaviour. Even less available than large animals and edible grains and berries were fat and sweets. In those days it was the rare creature that ever came across free fat. Whenever they did felicitously fall upon lards and sugars,” endlessly rolling out her r’s and extending the sweet shhh, “their appetites went positively berserk or, as some of you might prefer, ape shit. Evolution selected for survival those creatures that were able to find and capture these delicacies better than others.” Annabelle again paused and looked accusingly at each face except, of course, Abelard’s, to satisfy herself that she had their complete attention.
“Very recently,” she resumed, “and this is the third proposition I need to put before you, our industrious society developed an unprecedented ability to not only produce astonishingly large quantities of edible material but also found ways to expeditiously deliver such presumed nutrition practically into the consumer’s lap.” Here she shot an approving glance at fat boy, whose cream filled scone, which he had been busily stuffing into his mouth had squirted a white load onto his shirt front, which quickly oozed down over his pants.
“So, what have we got,” she asked, her snarl exposing an unfortunate overbite, the closest anyone would ever witness Annabelle coming to a smile? “An infantile disorder which causes people to reject perfectly good advice; coupled with a genetically programmed proclivity to eat all that is available while keeping physical exertion to a bare minimum; and the two fully complemented by an abundant and easily accessible food supply; the ideal basis for an interlocking, high growth business model.
“I propose,” she resumed, triumphalism creeping into her voice, “and I’ve already chosen, I mean identified,” casting a contrite glance at Abelard, not wishing to appear as though she was usurping the boss’s prerogatives, “the targets, that we might wish to acquire to gain a foothold in the junk food and weight control industries. My research shows that food chemists have developed many devious and clever ways to alter foods so as to increase the craving, and the gods only know how intense that is already,” she leered at the heaviest person in the room, “for their products so that sales and profits in these companies are practically guaranteed. I believe, however, that the management of these enterprises have missed an important profit opportunity. If each item sold, whether a hamburger or a candy bar, had a message about the benefits of good weight control and a recommendation to a particular weight control program, the joint profits would propel earnings into the stratosphere, and I know about the stratosphere,” leaning on her academic background. “The sale of junk would, of course, never be compromised by these messages, given my propositions one and two,” she added, smug as can be.
“You may quite legitimately be asking,” her enthusiasm, obvious to the trained observer who cared to look at the way in which she leaned forward on her hands, becoming almost unbridled, “how does this fit in with Pharma? Well, we know that most people will not stop eating what is patently bad for them and that all weight loss programs are just so much money making rubbish, leaving the poor wretches with little recourse but, and if I may have your attention here,” as though anyone would have dared withdrawing theirs, “to specialty weight control drugs, which we are already developing. To the extent that most drugs end up as expensive failures when they don’t live up to expectations, delivering only meagre improvements over placebos, the desperate will welcome even those slim to non-existent benefits. Pharma, as the last recourse of the hopeless will not only avoid the losses associated with a failed drug but will market and sell what a normal consumer would never purchase. At the end of the line Pharma will be the monger of last resort.
“There is also a small publishing factory, I don’t know what else to call a collection of I’ll-write-anything-for-the-needy authors, which we shall acquire so that they can flood the market with self-help books, the crutch of the hopeless, encouraging people to seek pharma solutions not only to their weight problems but, as well, to the depression that always accompanies unsuccessful efforts at weight control. I can already see fat boy panting, wanting to inform me that such depressions are of short duration and almost always disappear without any encouragement. It may perhaps be fleeting for you tubby, but why should anyone suffer for even a short moment when they can pop our brain candy for instant relief?
“In closing, let me summarize the supply chain I am proposing. From Junk food to weight loss programs to self help books to, finally, VBI pharma drugs.”
“Thank you Pucker,” Abelard enthused, leading the room in a rousing applause. “At our next meeting I expect to see at least the beginnings of a plan to operationalize Pucker’s strategy. Good day ladies and gentlemen.”
