Technology strikes the fat.

I was at a friend's house for dinner, and while I was washing the dishes, her daughter came up to me.

"Hey, Katie! Let me take your picture!" In her hand was the ipad that her grandma bought her for Christmas. I want her grandma to be my grandma.

"Okay..." I said. "Why?"

"I want to Fatify your face!"

I set the sponge down. "You want to what?"

She turned the ipad around so I could see the screen. "It's this really funny app I got. You take a picture of someone, then the app stretches their face and makes them look really fat."

Awesome.

"See? Here's my brother's picture." She pulled up a picture of her 7-year-old brother looking more like a 30-year-old former wrestler gone to fat.

"Nice," I said. "Okay, take my picture." I peered close into the camera lens, partly to ensure a ridiculous shot, and partly because my own 30-year-old eyes could barely see the camera lens.

With a faux digital-sounding "click," the ipad took my picture and rendered it into a likeness of myself that was worrisome for its continued resemblance. I was hoping it would look more like an actor on TV wearing a fat suit, where you know it's still them, you can recognize it's still them, but it looks comically different. (Well, not comically. I find zero humor in fat suits.) Instead, I looked like myself, as if I had repeated my freshman year of college a few times, but still like myself.

"Awww, I'm cute!" I said, trying to ward off any weight insults.

No dice.

"What?" the daughter recoiled. "No you're not! Look at your cheeks!" Her 13-year-old hatred for obesity was good for the future of healthcare, but not good for anyone else's feelings.

"Well, I think I'm cute," I said, turning back to the dishes.

"Mom, look at Grandma's picture," she said, having lost interest in me.

As I rinsed the plates, I wondered exactly what we're doing here. Technological advancement is amazing, especially when it gets a young person so excited.

Somehow, I don't think "Fattify Your Face" is what Steve Jobs had in mind.