My conversation with Rob Ford about the Cut The Waist Challenge

As many of you know, Toronto’s fiscally conservative mayor Rob Ford struggles with his weight

Back in January he launched a public campaign called The Cut The Waist Challenge, where he pledged to lose 50 of his 330 pounds in five months. It was a campy circus, this, with the mayor having public weigh-ins (sometimes with girls in lettuce bikinis!) each week and TV stations reporting on it as if it was a sports event. However, after a period of time the mayor stopped showing up for the weigh-ins, and then gave up on the entire project about month before it was to end.

You should know that I used to drink with Rob Ford back when he was a student at Carleton University in Ottawa. We were both last call regulars at a local bar and we became friendly in the way that only barflies bound by drinking can. The truth is that I don’t think we ever had a sober conversation, but we bonded through this somehow, and even though we haven’t seen one another in over 15 years, we still text one another when drinking alone. A kind of nostalgia, I guess.

I hadn’t heard from Rob in quite a long time, but on Friday, at 1:45 in the morning, he sent me a text.

Mayor Ford: Mur? You thare?

Me: SLOBBER!!!

Mayor Ford: Cowabangle, dude!

Me: How’s it hanging, captain?

Mayor Ford: Straight and strong, straight and srtong!

Me: What up, big dog?

Mayor Ford: Just watched Along Came Polly. Would totally do Jennifer Aniston!!!

Me: She’d be a lucky woman.

Mayor Ford: I’d be her fucking friend, if you know what I mean.

Me: You’d be a glamour couple, like the goddamn Kennedy’s!

Mayor Ford: I wonder what she smells like????

Me: Suntan lotion and misspent money?

Mayor Ford: Ha! She smells like big government! Let me tel u, I would cut the hell out of her deficit!

Me: Wacha drinking?

Mayor Ford: Gin, lotto gin tonight. On the patio throwing ashtrays at squirrels. You?

Me: Playing Angry Birds and drinking rum.  I miss the old days, Slobber!

Mayor Ford: Me2, little buddy, me2.

Me: ME2 sounds like a robot in a movie! Saw the Avengers the other day. Awesome!

Mayor Ford: 3-D rules. I completely fucking relate to the Hulk!  He my man!!

Me: Puny humans bother Hulk! Hulk smash!

Mayor Ford: SMASH!!SMASH!!SMASH!!

Me: Hey, how’s the weight-loss thing going?

Mayor Ford: SMASH!!SMASH!!SMASH!!

Me: Not so well?

Mayor Ford: SMASH!!SMASH!!SMASH!!

Mayor Ford: You know what my favourite part of the Avengers was?

Me: The smashing?

Mayor Ford: Yeah and Scarlett Johansson’s ass. Love the 3ddee.

Me: Aniston or Johansson?

Mayor Ford: BOTH!!! HAHAAHAHAHA!

Mayor Ford: Fuck, I love gin.

Me: Still get high?

Mayor Ford: Does a bull shit in a chinashop?

Me: Why’d you quit the weight-loss challenge?

Mayor Ford: Barbeque Season. Pulled fucking Pork.

Me: What about austerity measures?

Mayor Ford: Barbeque season ain’t no time for austerity measures!

Mayor Ford: Go Argos!!

Me: YOU THE MAN!

Mayor Ford: Lead, follow or get under the doggamn bus!

Mayor Ford: HULK SMASH BUS!!

Me: Testify!

Mayor Ford: I think globarl warming is real. GEts hotter all thetime. Love ya little buddy! Dizzy bedtime.