I had an hour or two to kill and decided to visit the mall nearby. The tropical weather outside trying to set my hair on fire kinda pushed me in, to be honest.

The fellow humanoids coming in and out of the polished glossy stores appeared happy and content to live a dream that somebody had put in their brains.

Over 90% of the sellers were women bathing in the dirty looks of bald men walking around with their wives and fat kids.

In the South corner, a middle-aged piano player was smoothly pressing the keys of a classic white royal. The sounds were designed to make the shopping experience more romantic, adventurous and captivating. What a fairy tale. The mall’s spell was on.

The songs of the piano man were generic and politically correct, but even that’s better than constantly hearing little pieces from other people’s conversations.

Guess, what, bro? I don’t want to hear your daily drama. Your dad bought you the white tablet instead of the black one and is banging the secretary and the neighbor. I am sorry, but I just don’t care. Go cry to mommy, plan a blackmail or just write about it in your blog like I would do. Just don’t fill my head with worthless data.

The piano man was sad. There was something melancholic about his gestures. Most piano men are like that by default, but there was more to the story.

The piano has many octaves making it a versatile instrument. You can be a one man orchestra thanks to the wide range. In addition, pianos are heavy and immobile. People who choose this instrument are more likely to prefer isolation.

Maybe the guy was heartbroken because he was playing in a soulless mall in front of mothers changing diapers of spoiled children? Perhaps he was also jealous of his former classmates filling large music halls in Paris? Or maybe I was wrong, and he was simply too invested into the song and thrilled to play regardless of his audience. I don’t know. I didn’t give it much thought because I wanted to go to the electronic store as fast as possible and stuff my soul with more technological deceptions.

I entered an enormous electronic store occupying at least two floors.

Most TV screens were playing a video of that survivor guy Bear what’s his name. In this particular episode, he was doing his signature move – drinking his own urine, drop by drop, from a snake skin. Oh, man. You gotta love “reality” TV. Here’s a quick question – how does the guy holding the camera survive? Is there enough urine for him to drink too?

My analyze was cut short because a semi-pretty girl was approaching me.

What’s semi-pretty? This is an individual with one good looking parent and another one who is a duck. In most cases, the pretty parent has emotional issues which the duck can allegedly fix. The opposites attract.

“Hello, sir! We have a special promotion for credit card users!”

What was she talking about? Credit cards? That girl was obviously watching way too many movies.

“No, thank you very much,” I said without trying to be polite. She had two rings. A lost cause.

I decided to check the tablet section. I went there and launched one of those magic screens addicted to human fingerprints. This was my first time working with a tablet. My actions were slow and lacked precision. I had to press more than once to get a response from the machine.

Out of nowhere, an assistance guy appeared. He was really young, probably just out of high school. This had to be his first contract job.

“Would you like me to show you how this amazing quad-core tablet with Full HD screen works, sir?”

That was a little insulting because of my long experience with computers. I’ve been living with similar machines for decades. However, I was way past the age when you feel bad for failing to understand a computer game and kept those superficial emotions under control.

“Yes.”

“What would you like to see?”

“Videos? I want to examine the quality of the screen.”

He started the browser.

“What kind of videos?”

“Sports, weightlifting, maybe bodybuilding too?”

“One moment, sir.”

He typed bodybuilding, and Google’s artificial intelligence immediately presented a few suggestions. One of them was Dorian Yates’ secrets to muscle mass.

“Click on this one,” I said.

The video started playing.

It was Dorian Yates explaining his high carb diet consisting of oat meal, rice and chicken breasts. The clip was Full HD and really well edited, making it easy to get hypnotized and manipulated into joining the genocide against chicken, rice and broccoli.

“This guy has some serious muscle mass on him. I lift weights too. Six days a week,” exclaimed the assistance guy and looked at his biceps with the corner of his eyes.

They were more like fatceps.

I was going to say “Me too.”, but when you don’t look like you lift and tell people that you lift, they give you that “Sorry, you suck!” look, and I really want to punch somebody in the face when that happens. Thus, I decided to keep quiet.

“This guy has a point. This morning I prepared a few containers full of rice, oat meal, chicken breast and broccoli myself. My mom thought I was crazy, but this is actually dedication. I love it. My colleagues are going to be shocked by the results,” added Mr. Assistance.

“Oh, noooooo! The bodybuilding propaganda is affecting more and more people,” I thought but didn’t say anything.

“By the way, you can buy chicken, broccoli and rice for a fair price at the supermarket downstairs,” informed me Mr. Assistance with a ton suggesting that I probably have to pay him for this great inside information.

“Why do you think chicken and rice will make you big? What’s so special about them,” I asked

“Chicken gives you protein, the building block of muscles whereas rice pumps high quality slow releasing carbs into your system. You become a machine.”

“What about fats?”

“Fuck fats. They are for the fatsos. You eat fat, you get fat. Carbs keep you full while fats make you fat and flat. You only need them occasionally.”

“Do you throw the egg yolk away too?”

“Yes. I give it to my cat.”

“But in nature animal protein always comes with fat. Fat is not bad for you when it’s natural.”

“It is. Look at the guy in the video. He is following a low-fat diet and is massive.”

“I think he is pinning his glutes,” I said using a very low key.

“What?”

“Nothing. Nice tablet, but I have a PC already.”

“This tablet is not supposed to replace a PC. It gives you mobility. You can, for example, take it with you in the kitchen and watch this video while preparing your own plastic containers. That would be pretty cool, wouldn’t it? A little motivation goes a long way.”

“Sure.”

“You seem way too opinionated about this. If I didn’t know any better, I’d think you actually lift weights. Have you ever been in a gym?”

“I’ve seen one.”

“From the outside?”

“From the inside too. Listen, I think bodybuilders are getting away with massive carb consumption because they are on steroids and other drugs.”

“Are you a scientist?”

“No.”

“Then your opinion on this topic is irrelevant, sir.”

“You may be right. I have to go. This tablet looks like a toy I can live without.”

Talking more to this brainwashed person was going to be very annoying. He was like a Duracell rabbit constantly hitting its head against the wall. I know that sooner or later even the most durable battery goes out of energy, but sometimes it takes so much time that you fall asleep and forget about the issue.

One day, not too far away, Mr. Assistance will wake up and realize that the rice and broccoli drama was nothing but a hoax prepared by the industry. Eating rice, chicken breasts and broccoli is not the secret to the physiques of the muscle heroes seen in the thongs & panties catalogs called fitness magazines.

I took out my dirty notebook from the back pocket of my worn jeans and added a few lines:

When you see people fighting over guys hitting or kicking a ball, they’ve been taken.

When you see people watching the morning show for financial advice, they’ve been taken.

When you see people voting for singers in reality shows, they’ve been taken.

When you see people waiting in lines for days to buy a product they don’t need, they’ve been taken.

….

When you see bodybuilders preparing plastic food containers full of chicken breast, rice and broccoli while expecting apocalyptical muscle growth, they’ve been taken too.

P.S. The post revealing the natty potential has been updated.