If you are ever feeling fat and old, go to Deadwood, South Dakota in the summer.  Look around any casino, walk the streets. It’s better than time travel at the speed of light.  In 5 minutes, you will feel like you traveled back to being 20 years “younger”.

It’s not Aces and 8’s (the dead man’s hand) or the Wild Bill pictures that help.  It’s the people.  Fat, chain-smoking people, who look like extras on the Walking Dead.

The wife and I drove up to the hotel.  The young woman checking us in was tipping the toledo’s at more than 300 pounds.  I’m not shaming her.  It’s my fat-body theory of relativity.  Everybody else in that town was her size.  It just made us feel — svelte.

I like them a lot more than the skinny fucks in San Francisco.

“There is an elevator to the Casino,” she said. “And you can catch the shuttle to downtown.”

We looked down the hall.  It was 4 steps up to the casino and there was a ramp.  Who the fuck needs an elevator?

We looked out the window.  It was maybe 500 steps to “Downtown.” Who the fuck needs a shuttle?

The touristas in Deadwood — that’s who.

“It’s Ok,” I said.  “We can walk.”

She looked at us like we just landed from Mars.

The other guests were outside the front door in a circle smoking heaters.  Through the frosted glass, it looked like an abstract painting of an angry dragon.  Based on the cracks in the sidewalk, I guessed their average weight was 275.

As we walked past, they were waddling onto the shuttle, which was dipping and heaving under the strain of each new passenger.

We had to flee the sound of the shocks screaching and squealing. We were the only ones making the walk.

Half the way to downtown there was no sidewalk. We walked in the street.  We were keeping up with all the Harley’s that had to stop every 10 feet for traffic and stop signs.

Every Harley had at least one smoker, a gray pony tail, and an unkempt gray beard.  And that was just the women on the “bitch” seat.

The drivers looked like Santa had escaped the north pole in July.

We get to downtown. Walk the length of it, looked in all the shops and stopped for ice cream.  Up rolls the shuttle and off waddles all the same people from the hotel — now sweating and reaching for more cigarettes.

“Jesus,” the wife said.  “I’ve never felt so good about myself in my entire life.”

So if your down about your expanding waistline, the age lines in your face or random joint pain, go to Deadwood in July.

You will feel like fucking superman.

Update

I originally posted this story in 2019, but I needed to feel younger this week, and memories of Deadwood worked like a charm. So I’m sticking my little self-esteem boost in your inboxes too.