Right Again

My Super Size Me! post generated a bit of commenting about the guy who has eaten at least one Big Mac a day since 1972, So I decided to do a bit more research (really it's that I'm sick and can't do much else).

His name is Don Gorske and he is a Wisconsin native. (The Gay Husband was wrong about him being southern-maybe he was trying to hide that this weirdo came from his home state). So, now that the whole him being "southern" excuse* is unavailable to explain away his perceived mental short comings I'm pretty sure the guy has some sort of mental health issue.

I think it's a given at this point that his IQ is somewhere around that of Forrest Gump, he doesn't really seen to have OCD and yet he displays an unhealthy attachment to something, which in my life I've always found to be a trait of OCD (personal experience) or mental impairment (I worked with the mentally impaired for years).

I offer as an example** the dishwasher who used to work in the restaurant that my family owned and my mom ran. I feel compelled to point out that said dishwasher had a birth defect which left him with only 1/2 a tongue (making it extremely hard to communicate-but the saint that my Mom is, she took the time to learn how to understand him and could pretty much understand everyword that came out of his mouth***). He lived in a house roughly the size of my room with something ridiculous like 12 other relatives****. He was capable of functioning in the real world on some level-but even at the tender age of 4 I could tell it was a bit of a strain.

Now, said dishwasher had unhealthy fixations on 3 things. Mountain Dew, The Rolling Stones, and carrying a Newspaper. Now I will examine the absurdities of each one of these in kind.

1. He literally drank 12-20oz. bottles of Mountain Dew everyday AND would bring it into work since the pop machine didn't have Mountain Dew. Ohh, AND he drank it warm. He literally would not go anywhere without his Mountain Dew. That just seems a bit excessive to me and is pretty much inline with only eating McDonald's for 33 years and essentially only drinking Coca-Cola. Except I think the Mountain Dew thing is actually a little less weird.
   
2. Why a guy with 1/2 a tongue would focus on The Stones is beyond me, I mean, come on...Their logo is a mouth with a tongue hanging out. One time when The Stones were coming to town and he brought a ticket. The show was in Downtown Detroit. He got lost (which was fairly common) and asked for directions, the catch was-nobody could understand him, and even if he had been smart enough to just show them the ticket I'm still not sure he would have gotten the directions right (due to what is about to be revealed in #3). Anyway, he ended up at Silverdome, which is about 45 minutes outside of the city and never saw The Stones.
3. He purchased a Newspaper everyday and would get to work early, sit in his car drink Mountain Dew and pretend to read the paper. Notice how I say pretend, because he could not actually read. This is why driving new places was so difficult for him. He had no idea what letters/words should actually sound like (granted it would be extremely hard for him based on his physical impairment) and so he frequently missed street signs and ended up completely lost.

Why I told this whole story to illustrate my point, I have no idea. I'm still pretty hopped up on medications (read: Pain Killers since it's the only thing that is helping) and not much I'm doing is making that much sense. But my point is, the Big Mac World Champion (or whatever), is definitely a few fries short of a Happy Meal.

*I'm NOT saying southerns are stupid in any way, shape or form. What I'm saying is that southerners talk slowly and for a fast talking "yankee" (as I've recently been called) slow talking in generally perceived to be one of 2 things, and being southern is the other one.

**I'm in no way mocking this man, in fact when my mom and I talk about him both of us will get all "emotional" on occasion, I'm simply telling this story because I think it's illustrates my point. I would also like to point out that the fact that there are members of our society that are so left out is a shame.

***Unless he got pissed off and then from what I gather it was quite the funny display that nodody could understand.

****The really f*cked up part was that he a younger sister who was extremely mentally challenged and the father had her sterilized and my parents always thought it was because he was sexually abusing her and didn't want to end up impregnanting her. Yeah, people are f*cking sick.