No. 39 - Oversized, undersized

We've long been a country of extremes, desiring the most lascivious of luxuries, yet condemning them at the next turn. As Americans, our vices identify us and shape how people perceive us. This imbalance is most evident when you look at what we consume.

In our need for consumption, the word moderation doesn't even enter the equation.

We love the monstrous portions of food, but with a diet drink. Our sisters and daughters wear next to nothing to school, yet the strongest voices are clamoring for abstinence (just thinking about sex will burn your retinas from your eye sockets!).

First, the oversized: king-size beds, giant pickup trucks and SUVs and trough-like syrupy buckets of "Biggie" drinks, not to mention oversized backsides that women owners like to display all too prominently in all its rippling cottage cheese-esque glory.

And then there's the other end of the spectrum: undersized. Again, these same ladies with oversized backsides tend to throw undersized clothes over their gelatinous mounds of flesh, creating a three-dimensional map that's way too vivid and leaves nothing to the imagination.

Food makers are now giving us 100 calorie diet portions of our favorite food. In actuality, they're reducing the portion sizes and charging the same price, then slapping a "healthy" sticker on the box, and voila! Instant health. Amazing. It's like we're all infants and will keep eating until we explode were it not for the rations that these food makers are so generous to mete out to us.

And while we're on the topic of undersized, our culture has an obsession with tiny things. Little salt-shakers, miniature tubes of toothpaste, those tiny bottles of ketchup that are ridiculously difficult to empty, tiny burgers, palm-sized computers: it's as if there's some little person conspiracy afoot. Their master plan is to miniaturize the entire world.

My phone's better because it's tinier. This iPod is so small, it's awesome, you can't even see me holding it right now, you can only see it with a microscope. The earbuds actually fell into my ear canals, so the iPod is now part of my nervous system. My dog is cool because I can fit it in my pocket. That's not a dog - that's a keychain, genius. And while you're at it, quit putting clothes on the little furry beast.

Maybe the big girl holding the dog can use the poodle tutu as a hankie, or a patch for when she sits down and rips her ....