At noon, every weekday for the last five years, Roland found himself here, at the Pizza Hut® in Mokena, Illinois. They were the proud host of an all-you-can-eat pizza lunch buffet from eleven AM to two PM. It was a match made in heaven, Roland loved pizza.

Roland, to put it nicely, was grossly obese. Every step he took, was a jiggle of flab under his flannel shirt, you could hear it, a gentle flap-a-dap of flesh swishing on flesh. It would be incorrect to assume that he smelled bad or moldy. Surprisingly, he had a fantastic aroma, which lingered like perfectly smoked bacon. Someone surmised the sun was literally baking him.

He would sit beside the buffet and order a large Diet Coke®, and he would merely turn around. One would always wonder, how do those bones function under all that fat? Do the bones grow with the fat? Do the bones not grow and just float around? By the way, he would traditionally, depending on availability, fill a plate with two sausage slices, two Hawaiian slices, two garbage slices, two pepperoni slices, two cheese slices, and six vegetarian slices. Roland loved his vegetables.

Once again, stereotype would demand that he snarfed the whole thing down in one obnoxious gulp. Instead, he ate in the most civil manner ever. So much so, you couldn’t help but wonder, where did he learn that? He filled his plate the same way three to four times. As the clock ticked down to 2 PM, all bets were off, the gorge began. Roland Cookie-Monstered the hell out of the remaining pizza. At times, moaning and screaming, “Pizza.” Pizza crust and dough flying about in a hurricane of his hands and mouth.

The manager, Chad, remembers a time when Roland still retained the shape of a human being instead of this comatose corpulent octopus state. “He looks like he’s eaten himself three and a half times. For real.”

One may wonder how a Pizza Hut® could sustain such daily damage, and tolerate the eating behavior of Roland. First, he was an excellent tipper, and Pizza Hut® has a huge profit margin, especially when you consider the ratio of crust to actual meat and “toppings”.

More often than not, as Roland wobbled out of the Pizza Hut®, someone will say in a voice reminiscent of Max from the hit television show, Hart To Hart, “He’s gorgeous.”

Gorge