But this coke is fat free

Sometimes you talk to people you just can’t argue with – it’s not that they happen to be right it’s that they are literally too stupid to argue with https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MDbuhhRthqU - this was one of those occasions.

I was playing my usual lunchtime tournie over at TI where my success is dictated on being able to drink my entry fee in free beer rather than the result on the table. I’d just ordered my 3rdor 4th beer of the day when the guy on my right pipes up with “You should be careful drinking those beers or else you’ll get fat”. Now if he’d said nothing else after that sentence he might have looked smart, but he obviously didn’t stop at that. He ordered a coke, it was the 3rd or 4th one he’d ordered and he handed the waitress his empty takeaway refill cup so it’s not like he’s getting one of the small glasses that they usually use in casinos. He’s effectively drinking pints of coke in the same time that I’m drinking a bottle of beer. So I give him a weird look and reply “But you’re drinking coke”. 

He replies “yeah I know… but this coke is fat free”. My fucknut alert is in the middle of changing from green to amber when he continues “it doesn’t make you fat if it’s fat free”. Skip the amber alert – it’s now gone to red, and flashing, with alarms going off as well (watch from 2.30 onwards https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i_gFj11nX-g) 

“But there’s no fat in beer” I reply, “same as there’s no fat in coke”. I’m speaking slowly in the hope that he gets it. He doesn’t. “So why is it called a beer belly then?” is his reply. What comes after red, purple maybe – or is that a fruit https://twitter.com/simpsons_tweets/status/374195254011760640

So I now slow down my speech as if I’m talking to a child, a big demented man child “beer has carbohydrates in it because of the sugar turning to alcohol. Coke has sugar in it which is carbohydrates. Carbohydrates are effectively calories, excess calories make you fat”. This is far too much information for this guy’s head and he looks more confused before asking “So I can get fat from coke? I don’t believe it”. Seat change please dealer, or table change if possible. But it’s a tournie and I’m stuck next to him but luckily he quietens down to contemplate what I’ve just told him or maybe he’s thinking that he’s got some sort of crazed lunatic next to him and maybe he’s the sane one that should stop talking to me. He busted out shortly after our conversation and as he left he said “Thanks for the advice buddy, I’m gonna look into that” as if I’d revealed some sort of mystical secret.

At no stage did I want him to continue that conversation as I’d have to tell him my personal views on sugar (that the whole industry will become the 21st or 22nd Century’s equivalent of the tobacco industry and that it’s the leading cause of preventable childhood tooth decay and one of the leading causes of obesity in the developed world) because I’m afraid he wouldn’t be able to comprehend those issues. That and my fucknut alert had run out of colours.