The Oros Man

Being overweight is a strange disposition. I doubt that thin people have as much to worry about as us, their thicker cousins, when it comes to day-to-day “normal” living. I was outside smoking by myself the other day and got to thinking about the year-end functions on which we are about to embark in the corporate world. The silly season is on the horizon, and with it a deluge of supplier and customer lunches, dinner award evenings and cocktail parties.

Chills go down my spine when I sit by myself at my flat in a corner and contemplate what kind of inhumanities I will be subjected to this year in order to earn the pleasure to partake of those little-little cocktail sausages and those little-little samosas. For some reason, a miniature version of an item of food increases my enjoyment of it by about a thousand times. I just get so excited when I see them tiny little things stacked about a hundred high on platters on those massive buffets spreads that seem to go on forever and ever!

Oh, I also get to imbibe tens of litres of the golden nectar of the gods at our year-end functions for the same amount in humiliation currency.

There is always some cheery secretary type who is handed the happy task of picking the theme for these events. A theme; why, I don’t know. Why do I need a theme to get utterly motherless and tell my boss stuff I’ll regret the following day? Why do I need a theme for that? I’ll take my hat off to the first person who will decide that getting drunk and sleeping with your colleague is theme enough for our next year-end function. We’ll call it the Office Regret Ball 2007 because, trust me, there will be regret if you decide to frolic between the proverbial sheets with a colleague. Although, in most of these cases the “sheets” are usually the office supplies room, the boss’s office or my personal favourite, the forever-neglected emergency-exit staircase — genius! So, go ahead, do your thing, player!

So a theme is picked and from experience, the theme is designed to outcast all fat people from attending or enjoying these events. They always pick something that requires everyone to have a costume. In my colourful past I’ve done medieval, Egyptian and, my all-time low point, 19th-century Europe — just to mention a few.

The other day I was thinking about what I would wear if I were to be presented with the sure inopportunity to attend one of these gatherings. I was troubled by the realisation that I’d probably have a jolly tough time again this year finding a costume that would fit. See, I had vowed that by this Christmas I would’ve lost most of this weight. But alas, by the middle of January I was back to my pork-chop-devouring ways and comfortable with the idea of another year of trans-fatty-acid-laden fun. I had made thinning down my New Year’s resolution on the back of a horrible costume-party incident that left me with a jacket around my bum covering a ripped pair of rented Middle Eastern-styled pants. Arabian Nights, never again! Those materials were just not made for the Sumo.

I mean; the most common costumes are of superheroes such as Batman, Spider-Man and Superman, but even with those you still have the theme hurdle to get over first. I mean, it would be weird if the theme was Asian and you came through with a Shrek outfit; people would ask questions. And it doesn’t help that you’d stand out like a sore thumb the whole evening, I mean, imagine a green blimp trying to be inconspicuous in an ocean of Asian attire.

But I haven’t lost all hope; if I’m lucky enough, they’ll pick superheroes as a theme this year. I doubt it, but I’m hopeful nonetheless. As it is unrealistically dictated by thin society, the normal superhero costume is the picture of health and vitality and would not be made in 4XL. This brings us to my problem: the only costumes I can think of that the Sumo could possibly acquire are of the Incredible Hulk, the Michelin man and, of course, the Oros Man … I settled on the Oros Man because I do not see the Playhouse Company, where I’d hire a costume, having one of the Incredible Hulk or the Michelin Man, especially not in 4XL. Besides, green is just not my colour.

With the Oros Man, however, I’d just have to get a tight, orange T-shirt, a pair of tight, orange pants and orange body paint, and I’d be sorted. You might argue that the Oros Man and the Michelin Man are not superheroes. Maybe not in your eyes; in mine, however, they definitely are. It takes guts to be a jolly, fat orange oke. And having rolls of skin as your main feature, well … Which brought me to another question: Whatever happened to the Oros Man? Did he fall victim to a marketing strategy redirection, or maybe someone high up just didn’t like the dude who wore the costume and axed the whole idea just to get rid of him?

With this whole Vitality (healthy living) band wagon that everyone is hopping on these days, the Oros Man might have been deemed no longer suitable to promote the brand. The thinking from those dear marketers might have been along the lines of: “If the mascot is overweight, then the product must make you overweight, which would mean by buying the product you’d want to be overweight yourself …” I wonder if that is how the Oros Man bit the dust.

And I wonder if the guy who used to wear that costume has found alternative employment. Lord knows, we have enough unemployed fat entertainers out there. I’m just one example; my vocal ability would mean that I’d sail through the top talent-search competitions, but how many of those “talent”-search competitions are about actual talent remains up for debate. And where am I going to get an acting script that calls for a fat, male lead? Where?!

But I digress from my current dilemma. So if you happen to spot a bright orange guy this summer falling all over himself, please be nice to him. He will be extremely drunk and full of little cocktail sausages, but he’ll be hurting inside and the tight orange costume he will be wearing will be cutting off blood circulation. So, ladies, if you see this guy faint in front of you, please take him to the nearest emergency-exit staircase, make sure there’s no one around and do to him whatever comes naturally to you in your drunken state. There’ll be protection in one of his pockets.

I rest.

The Sumo