Editor’s note: This is a two-part column. Part two will be available on The State Hornet website Thursday.

I remember riding in the back seat of my mom’s car. I said, “Look mommy! What’s that afar?” We quickly ordered from the menu and ate happily. I then looked at her again and said, “Can we get more, more, more please?”

It was a holiday, no, a vacation from school when I first heard what I now knew. Two patties, special sauce, lettuce, and cheese are what I now wanted to consume. I went there buying what I need, and later had every intention to ask the register for ‘more, more, more please.’

Now it’s getting late, the high school nights, I suppose. After having a good night out the fellows, it was drive-thru time once again. We went, we laughed, we talked about our night with glee but when it came to the drive-thru window, we looked at the server and said, “Could you hook it up with ‘more, more, more please?'”

I remember now, there I was sitting on my couch with ease, and then popped a commercial perking me up to see. It was a man’s man commercial, filled with song, dance and cheer. It said that the food is what I need, and I took it to be sincere.

I took that commercial full to heart, opening myself to a double patty times three. It was good, no it was delicious but most importantly it was practically free. And when I looked at my wallet it said to me, “You can afford ‘more, more, more. Just say please.”

Soon the days became difficult, lying there overweight on my mother’s couch, and the nights even worse as I let myself continue to consume. However, this time after I finished my two #5s, I looked at myself and could only say, “Why, why, why and never more please?”

It wasn’t till I read the paper about a man exposing the effects of my deepest desire, telling the world of my impending dire. I looked at my mom blaming her as my insides burned with fire. Why am I like this? Is it your fault why I mass perspire? Is it my fault or is it your genes which I do not desire?

Obesity is on the rise it said, the second most preventable cause of death in America . I then looked at myself in the mirror and again said, “Why, why, why?”

I wanted to blame my parents, my friends then the world around. However, it was my fault and my death, that lay upon my hands but there was one last hope planned.

So with all my strength I gathered my voice and said to my councilmen, “I need help. I need hope. Please I need a way. My body is hurt, my heart ever sore, but somehow someway can you help with my pain? I’m an uninsured taxpayer with little to my name. I love life, want to change but my body needs something, something to help me through the day.”

The councilman looks back at me, as sad as can be and says, “Sorry son, with these current legislators that just cannot be. There’s people out there that just cannot agree on lowering their income just so you can be. They feel it’s a waste, that what you take from them is just your greed and that your story is so seldom and not in any attentive need.”

And so I lay there on my mother’s couch remembering the day, the day that Gov. Schwarzenegger rejoiced with cheer. A plan for a health care, a universal one at that, where all women, men and children will have an opportunity in enlisting themselves in such an act.

But now, two years after his generous re-election proposal, our economy is wiped with no funds in sight for such a benevolent proposal.

Now I wait, for it is all I can do. Wait for word of something anew. Are we rid of our budget crisis and are we back onto the path of promises? No, the reply is. Sorry son they say, nothing new, nothing new. Where I then reply, ‘why, why, why?’

Victor Nieto can be reached at [email protected]