I am a middle-aged, second-generation immigrant to your land looking to find an honest day’s work for an honest day’s wage. I am an extremely sturdy worker, whose size betrays a strong, working-class back/ethic. I should add that when I work, I do not wear a shirt. Instead, I prefer to wear trousers held up buy a set of high-duty suspenders. I also do not wear CSA approved steel toe safety boots, but rather a pair of dirty tennis shoes I’ve owned since 1982. I do not carry a wallet.

The following are some manual labour jobs for which I am well suited…
Painting outdoor banisters: If you have a steel banister that is one colour and you would like to change it to another colour (or—why not?—rust proof it) using paint, I’m your man. I am able to paint a banister of average length, width, and grade in a period of an afternoon, accounting for two bagged lunch breaks and the time it takes me to search for the pack of cigarettes that was in my back pocket the whole time. Unlike many banister painters in this town, I am not worried about getting paint on my shirt. (I won’t be wearing one.)

Manhole cover adjustment: If you are a mayor of town or city who has a make-work project involving adjusting the position of manhole covers or anything concealing street access to a sewer, give me a call. I can adjust the manhole covers anywhere from 45-80 degrees in any direction. I can also switch manhole covers from one manhole to another, or just stand there and stare at them intently, so that passerby will think I’m planning to do something with them. My presence there may also deter people selling manhole covers for scrap. Also, if you are looking to steal manhole covers and sell them for scrap, I am willing to work on a ten-percent commission.

Security: If you are hosting a stag and doe or other event at a local Legion, Polish Combatants Hall, Italo-Canadian Cultural Centre, or Victoria Edelweiss Club, I am available to stand outside the door and keep out the riff-raff who lack the ethnic background required for entry. Will work for 50/50 draw tickets.

Botched car interior reupholstering: I don’t have much experience reupholstering the interiors of cars, but if you’re looking for a big guy to get inside of your automobile and just mess around with a linoleum knife, look no further. If your interior is leather, don’t bother calling: I’d only resent you and not even bother attempting to competently finish the job. (Note: As I do not wear a shirt, there may be some perspiration stains left on your new interior.)

Install a screen door: I like this job because sometimes the fine mesh steel of the screen grates against my bare gut and it feels good. You may like this job because I do not have to enter your home and my grappling with the screen door itself will create a physical barrier between me and you/your children/your pets.

Chest freezer reassignment: I’m pretty good at moving whole chest freezers around: up or down stairs, etc. The leather suspenders I wear provide solid back support and I can usually just haul the thing around for a few minutes without pulling or tearing anything.

Hammer dummy: If you just need a guy who is wearing suspenders (but no shirt) to swing a claw or ball-pein hammer against a brick wall for a while for some reason, I can handle that. I can’t drive an actual nail for love or money, though, so don’t even ask.

Child rearing assistant: Gimmie a call if you’re looking for a guy to sit on the edge of your son or daughter’s bed breathing heavily. When they eventually wake up, panicked, they will see my sunburned, smiling face as well as my all-purpose work suspenders and calloused labourer’s hands, and realize the value of a college education. For jobs like this, I will generally leave your house at my own pace and treat myself to one item from your chest freezer.

General labour: If you have any unskilled labour tasks (i.e. no plumbing, grout, wiring, rolling up loose change, or duct work), fitting for a man with no particular skill set or shirt who smells like capers and the case of OV he drank last night, I am open to hearing about it. I also know a guy who makes a bad habit of leaving the keys to his truck in the driver’s side visor, so if you have any tasks that require a truck, I can help with those too (no driver’s license, though: wouldn’t let me pose for the photo shirtless). I prefer to work for cash or trade my services for items you own, though I can maybe make arrangements to accept major credit cards, if I ask my nephew about how to do it.

If you have any work at all for me, please contact me. I can usually be found admiring fence post diggers in back alleys around town, dusting dry cement mix off my bare chest in front of independently-owned submarine sandwich shops, and can also be reached by e-mail: gravedigger_fan@mindspring.com.

Catch me on a good day, when I am trying. I could probably lift a small car. Think a fat guy could do that? Don’t think so.

Typically, I work out 5 days a week. But not because I need to. Look at me. Girls love it. Think I go to the gym because I have to? You’d be wrong. Its because I crave exercise. Think its a chore? Wrong again. Not for me. I love the gym. Like a second home to me. Fat people are lazy. And lazy people don’t work out five days a week. You gotta be joking me if you think they do.

Maybe my bones are a little bit bigger than most peoples’ are. I have big bones. A lot of people have big bones. No big ‘D’. I just have big, oddly fleshy, bones. So maybe those fleshy bones protrude outwardly a little and might maybe make it seem like I have the appearance of having a little extra. So what? I’d doesn’t mean I’m fat. Really it doesn’t.to be trampled by drooling girls. Scorchin’ hot ones too. They come running for it. Look at those muscles, they say. My God, there’s not an ounce of fat on that body, they say.

Girls flock to me. You bet they do. If I take my shirt off at the beach, just make sure you get out of the way. Unless, of course, you want

Oh, maybe by some ridiculous unfair beauty standards where everyone in the whole fucking world has to be as perfect as Alicia Keys or Meryl Streep, I might be considered a little girthy. But the real world isn’t like the magazines because sometimes people have beauty on the insides even though their outsides are doughy and malformed.

Not me though. My body is as hard as my attitude and demeanor. Harder even. Well, the same.

Besides, the pamphlets say that people who bully use differences to target victims because they themselves are afraid, jealous, envious, insecure, fat, cruel, angry or unhappy. What the bullies don’t know is that its our differences that make us unique and individual. The pamphlets say that bullying is never the victims fault and that i am not alone but oh god i feel so alone and sometimes its so hard not to blame yourself when all you do is stuff your worthless fat fuck face day and night like the warthog you are

Or so I’d imagine. I mean, its not like I’m fat. Not personally, at least.

Do you know how hard it is to adjust your self image and feel comfortable about you for who you are in your own skin? Do you know what it takes to look at yourself in the mirror and force a fake smile through your white teeth that gleam though they’re eroding from vomit and stare at yourself repeating out loud all the good things about yourself you can think of and all the good qualities that you have and say i am a nice genuine person who deserves to be treated like a human being not a farm animal or i’m sure there are other people who like the way i look or i am adept at solving math problems and logical conundrums or in these pants and in this light my calves don’t look very fat today or remind yourself that sometimes people who are seem physically attractive on the outside are morally fat and treat others with the kind of disrespect that is at least equivalent to the disgust i inflict daily on all those who have to look at my oh god my lumpy bloated buttery bubblebutt, but all you see is an ugly gross pudgypodgy fattyfattfattyfatty. goddamn you mirror why can’t you go one fucking day without ridiculing me? mirror i will overcome you i am strong. imstrongimstrongimstrong
imstrongimablob maybe i’m giant but you’re a giant asshole and girls prefer inner qualities to outer appearance everyone knows that. i might be fat but you’re mean and at least i’m nice