I am a chubby chaser, and I hate ranch dressing

Seriously, I love the expression on the old guy's face in this picture.

It's no secret among my circle of friends that I am a chubby chaser. With very few exceptions (including my current beau), I have always been attracted to slightly overweight guys. I'm not sure why; maybe it's because they tend to be funny and I like funny guys. Maybe it's because they are good insulation on a cold night. Or maybe it's because if we ever crashed our plane in the Andes Mountains, they would provide more caloric sustenance.

Yesterday I stumbled upon Man vs. Food, starring Adam Richman. The premise of the show is that this guy goes around the country and takes on local restaurants' eating challenges. After I saw him successfully eat a 72 oz. steak, plus a salad, baked potato, and a yeast roll, in 32 minutes, I was smitten.

**[UPDATE] Adam also ate a shrimp cocktail with this meal. Oh. My. Gosh.**

**[CONTINUED UPDATE] I was wondering what that thing was between the salad and the roll. I guess that's a shrimp cocktail. With at least 4 shrimp. This man is a GOD.**

Half-way into the show, however, I had to break up with Adam. Why, you might ask, when you two are so obviously a match made in heaven? Well, internet friends, Mr. Richman put ranch on his fried chicken. True, it was at the urging of the proprietor of Gus' Fried Chicken, but still. I hate ranch.

My hate affair with ranch started when I was about 11 years old. I was babysitting my 3 younger sisters, when one of them opened up the fridge and out fell a glass, family-sized bottle of Hidden Valley Ranch Dressing. It broke all over the floor, spreading under the cabinets and to almost every corner of our little kitchen. I don't know if you've ever tried it, but it is near to impossible to clean up a sea of ranch dressing. After breathing in the ranch fumes for what felt like 6 hours, I was done with ranch. The thought of it made me gag.

Fast forward about 9 years. I'm in college, waiting tables at a rib joint in North Carolina. Every time I turned around, a table was asking for ranch. Their requests blended together until it sounded like the bleating of so many redneck sheep. "Ranch! Ranch!"

*shudder*

My friend decided that ranch is what runs in the devil's veins. My fellow servers and I would complain when we got sat a bunch of likely ranch dressing lovers.

"Dammit, I just got sat an 8 top of ranch eaters."

or

"Fucking ranch eaters--they didn't even leave me 10%."

I'd try to get my petty revenge on these tables. Our menu said that we had a 'low calorie' ranch, which we were always out of, and I loved to bring ramekin after ramekin of the regular 'high fucking calorie' version to ladies at lunch who requested the 'low cal' version.

"Are you sure this is low-cal? It tastes so good!"
"Of course, ma'am. We carry only Ken's Steakhouse Dressings, that's probably why you can't taste the difference."
"Well, do you mind bringing me some extra ranch, then? Since it's low-cal..."

Hahaha...joke's on you, biotch. I'm not even mad you left me a $0.75 tip on your $9 salad.

The ranch dressing icing on the cake was when one mother, in between puffs on her More cigarette, told me her son needed extra ranch dressing on his salad. But of course, ma'am.

"Really, he just wants ranch soup with some lettuce floating in it," she laughs.

*sound of a record scratching*

What?

So, I'm sorry, Adam Richman. Things would never work out between us. You are funny, and charming, and I'd never have to worry about forgetting my to-go box at restaurants, if I could just overlook this one flaw. You are so close to being the perfect man.

Also you have a master's degree from Yale's School of Drama and I think you might be gay.