By John Carlson—
Just when you think the world is so screwed up you want to jump off, a story comes along that renews your faith, your spirit, and your hope for the future. Last week I was fortunate enough to encounter one of those stories.
The headline read something like: “Dad bods now considered sexy.”
All I could say to that was, “Eureka!!!”
That’s because I have been working to perfect my Dad bod ever since I was six.
Back as a school kid, sculpting my skinny arms, spindly legs and flaccid abdominal muscles wasn’t considered sexy, let alone hip. But unlike things such as math, science, grammar, English literature, social studies, German and typing, it turned out to be a pursuit I could stick with.
This was even through significant challenges.
In my tender years, it took hundreds of platters of Howard Johnson’s deep-fried clams smothered in tartar sauce, all washed down by endless 16-ounce Pepsis, to develop my classic pear-shape. It also required skipping gym class and all other forms of sweat-inducing activity with a religious fervor that the most strident Mormon missionaries would have found commendable.
Also, late every summer beginning way back in elementary school, I’d have to accompany my Mom to Sears to buy some bigger back-to-school clothes. Inevitably, some skinny, glad-handing, shyster of a clothing salesman would intercept us.
“Hey! Looks like this big boy is gonna need to hit the ‘husky’ racks today!” he’d joke. To this I would always chuckle while thinking, “Dude, if I were ten years older, right now you’d need a tire iron to pry my sneaker from your butt.”
Husky was a word I detested. While I’m sure it had been adopted by some corporate Human Resources department as a kinder description for Sears big-waisted corduroys than its Young Tubbos line, that’s exactly what my fellow pupils understood husky to mean.
Another bleak day for Dad bod developers was always “weigh-in day,” the one day every year when the school nurse would set up a scale in the front of the entire class and weigh every kid. Those days in particular we husky guys envied the skinny guys. We even envied the ultra-skinny guys who were so gaunt, they probably had tapeworms.
While “weigh-in day” could be emotionally troubling for those of us with Dad bods-in-training, the girls already working on Mom bods were nothing less than mortified to see that scale. Set up in front of the entire classroom, it resembled nothing so much to them as a gallows.
On a couple occasions, a kindly nurse would whisper a large girl’s weight to the teacher for recording, thereby not revealing a specific figure for her cruel, insufferable classmates to guffaw over. But in learning a large girl’s weight, even a popular sixth-grade teacher like good old Mr. Smith would sometimes forget himself. Upon the nurse whispering him the shocking figure, he’d go all bug-eyed with disbelief while silently but plainly mouthing a reaction such as, “Seriously???”
But for the guys? Mr.Smith didn’t even try to whisper. Not surprisingly, he had obviously been working on his own Dad bod for decades.
But all that was a long time ago, way before Dad bods were determined to be so cool that everybody wanted one. It’s like, now a school’s hippest guys are walking around saying, “Dad bods are ‘rad’ bods!” which may sound pretty dorky and outdated to young hipsters, but I’m still thinking about having it tattooed across my belly.
But you ask, is this trend to embrace Dad bods for real? A long-term thing? Certainly! I read it on the Internet! The story I encountered about Dad bods’ growing popularity was traced back to the early 2010s, culminating in a 2021 survey.
It found that 75 percent of respondents preferred the notion of traditional Dad bods, meaning guys who looked like they had beer kegs hidden under their Hawaiian shirts, as opposed to the guys packing those gross muscular six-packs the ladies used to swoon over. Granted, at the time of the survey, 99 percent of those 75 percent of respondents were undoubtedly guys who hadn’t been on a date in more than a quarter-century, guzzling beer while eating fistfuls of Nacho Cheese-Flavored Doritos between belches in grungy stag bars.
Nevertheless, the survey found one explanation for our newfound respectability and popularity is that guys with Dad bods are perceived as being too busy providing for their families to get out there and exercise.
Seriously.
They, and by that I mean we, don’t have time to spend selfishly “chiseling our physiques,” not that we wouldn’t all love to be doing that.
This is certainly the case with me.
I mean heck, I’d give anything to be lifting weights in some stinky workout room with a bunch of other smelly fellas, toning my body to a soundtrack of guys moaning their heads off while popping inguinal hernias left and right. And naturally, I’d also rather be out there on some lonely road being chased by rabid pit bulls while inhaling bugs through my gaping mouth as I breathlessly bicycled past squished possums, squirrels and turtles.
The fact is, however, you’ll usually find us boring guys with Dad bods back home going over the family finances to make sure our college kids’ tuitions are paid for, using one hand to work a calculator.
That leaves our other hand free to grab some more French fries.
A former longtime feature writer and columnist for The Star Press in Muncie, Indiana, John Carlson is a storyteller with an unflagging appreciation for the wonderful people of East Central Indiana and the tales of their lives, be they funny, poignant, inspirational or all three. John’s columns appear on MuncieJournal.com every Friday.
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