Big Meals

Is there anything on earth better than a big meal? Maybe seeing an enemy starve us equal. Certainly nothing beats it.

After a big meal today though, I had my confidence shattered. Police officers are protecting our freedom at the entrance to the train I ride with random bag checks. They’re on the clock ensuring nobody blows up the train because if somebody did they’d let all of New Jersey down.

Sometimes I do have a bag, but today all I had was my charming personality and a belly full of food. Apparently, cleaning my plate at dinner was enough to cause stomach expansion to a level in which my stomach actually looked like I was smuggling something.

Aren’t police officers supposed to have good eyesight? Or am I confusing them with baseball umpires? Which is the one we’re supposed to spit on in an argument? I guess the answer depends on your race.

The lawman asked that I step over to have my bag checked. Not since my last physical when the final turn your head and cough moment has anyone asked to check any bag of mine. I agreed to the bag check only for the police officer to then question if I even had one. I didn’t so he let me pass.

I could feel bad about this. Instead I’m going to blame it on my four layers of baggy clothing. Between my oversized wrestling t-shirt, stretched out plaid business attire, gargantuan hoodie covered in dog fur and bearded lady facial remnants, and jacket–it’s no wonder the policeman didn’t ask me to remove the family from under my shirt.

I think he was embarrassed. If he wasn’t, I’m supposed to sue him for hurting my feelings.

Worst of all, as I was haunted by memories of being a fat kid, some mother snuck baby formula onto the train. Fat shaming me nearly cost America its innocence today all because I dress like a slob.

(Okay, so maybe the cop wasn’t so crazy after all. He should have at least searched my giant head)

Your Girlfriends

I’m sitting in the car in who knows where New Jersey. To give you a time frame of when this took place, a new song by Audioslave plays on the radio. It’s a bad one. Chris Cornell needs to hang it up. I forget where I was originally going. I think Seaside. But I’m not there. I took a detour into the woods and saw a random couch. This was in the Pine Barrens. Home of the Jersey Devil. Nowhere near the hockey team. But now it’s nighttime. My friend was doing the driving and we’re nowhere near Seaside Heights, location of Jersey Shore if you’re not familiar with historic landmarks. We can see it across the bay. Instead we’re at some other shit place. Alone, at 10pm at night near a bay with an overturned trash can. How did it get overturned? I kicked it. I’m an angry teenager. It’s what I do. My friend decides to open up to me. He tells me that there’s a girl he’s interested in. He likes her. She likes him. Then comes the moment where he whips out his camera phone to show me a picture. He prefaces it with “I know she’s a little big, but–” And I immediately make a bet that this relationship will not last.

(I’d also like to place a bet that at least 3 of these girls have herpes)

Yes, she is a little big. Upwards and sideways. That wasn’t a necessary prologue to the picture. It was my first thought seeing the picture. Of course the relationship didn’t last. He was embarrassed of her. The first sign that you hate your girlfriend, you insult her before I even see a picture.

To be kind, this friend in particular isn’t the only one who has done this. Sorry ladies, but guys do this a lot. I never have. I haven’t had a camera phone for even a year yet. You see, I’m old fashioned. I don’t openly insult someone I’m dating unless they deserve it. I also don’t wear buttons because they’re too fancy. How do I get my pants off if there’s no button? You’ll have to come over to find out.

I can think of a few other instances where I was presented with pictures of girlfriends of friends and they said something pigheaded about the girl. “I know she’s a little heavy but–”, “I know she has a weird nose but–”, “I know she’s Jewish but–” and almost always following the butt is a comment about how she has a great sense of humor or pert rack. I think it’s a silly thing though to have to defend who you’re dating. You shouldn’t have to do it. I’m not some oppressive father. I’m not going to judge you then beat you for attempting to cancel out our pure bloodline. Starting off with something negative makes me automatically assume the worst. You’ve open the flood gates of insults forever. And trust me, if I don’t like her, I will never hold back.

The thing about it is I never knew how to react when these situations popped up. What do I say “Yes, she sure is fat. Looks like you’ll be going on a lot of dates to the Chinese Buffet around the corner.” Around every corner is a Chinese Buffet where I grew up. Never a Chinese person. But if a large group of Chinese people ever did enter the town, there would be plenty of food for them. Usually my response is to defend the poor girl whose boyfriend hates her. I guess I don’t defend so much anymore. I’ll say things like “Meh she’s not bad-looking though.” Then he’ll agree and feel better. Sometimes I get into discussions that she would look better if she lost some weight. Well who wouldn’t? But then there are some people who would still be ugly. They have weird chins or improperly dried faces. You know, faces that look like they weren’t supposed to be put in the dryer but were. I wish I could think of an example outside of someone I went to school with. Think the old guys from the Muppets, sort of.

(Statler and Waldorf, they look exactly like half the girls guys I know have dated)

I’ve never shown pictures of my girlfriend to anyone. Not that I’m embarrassed of her. Just I have no one to show them to and most of the pictures I take of her on my phone are of her butt. Sometimes she likes pictures of her butt taken. Other times I have to trick her and say she dropped something. Nevertheless, if my phone ever goes missing they will know how much I like butts.

(Shouldn’t he be falling through the asshole of this butt?)

I did show two friends a picture of one girl I was sort of dating once. They didn’t believe me that I even knew her. We were in a Barnes and Noble parking lot arguing about it. I pointed out the girly handwriting on the back and they said I probably had my sister do it. What kind of sick person would have his sister write a fake note for him on the back of some pictures? Maybe the same person who carried around a picture of someone he didn’t even know claiming she was his girlfriend. I swear, when I did that I had a really good reason. I can’t remember what it was, but back then it made perfect sense.

Sharing pictures of your girlfriends is fine. I love seeing pictures of girls. All kinds of girls doing all kinds of things. When you do it, I almost think you’re saying in a secret way “Hey, if you’re ever bored or anything, you know, give her a call. I’m not very good at pleasing her.” Which nobody ever actually says. My life isn’t that perfect. But be courteous to your girlfriend. If you’re going to go around showing pictures, brag about her. Say what feature on her body you enjoy most. Maybe I can agree with you and you can have a creepy cuckold fantasy of watching me with her. I don’t know. I’m not in your head. I can’t decide what it is you think about in your spare time.

(But they can)

Advices

I like to give advice out to people. That’s nice of me. The problem, most of it is unsolicited. I’m not an ass about it. I don’t walk up to ugly married couples and suggest they not make a baby. That’s great advice. There are lots of ugly people in the world. By my counts, I saw 43 today. Yes, I actually counted how many people whom I saw in person who I could consider ugly. It’s a fun game to play and lets me forget about other problems in my life. Ugly people do serve a purpose. They remind me that I’m not them.

The main thing I have given people advice on is weight loss. I’m no Adonis or anything. I probably will never grace the covers of a fitness magazine. I don’t know why I would even want to. They’re only masturbation fodder for gay teenage boys too afraid to look up real gay porn on the Internet. Instead they settle for whichever professional wrestler is showing off his abs this month. I do believe that I at least have some knowledge to offer on the subject though. For the uninformed, I used to be very overweight. I remember my Indian doctor saying “I have a chart of weights here that match up with heights. Your weight does not match up with any heights.” Well fuck you. I’m sorry that your chart doesn’t go up to 8’9. We weren’t all born in a place where there term “Holy Cow” should be taken literally. (I had an even longer rant on this but it seemed too racist. Instead I’ll leave you with a picture of Phil Rizzuto whose catchphrase was “Holy Cow”)

(He swings like a gay kid who doesn’t know what baseball is)

How did I lose this weight? I used this book that my mom got me. It was called Jorge Cruise’s 8 Minutes in the Morning. It was a simple exercise guide which involved, on average, 8 minutes of exercising after immediately waking up. There was a diet to follow and little activities to do. I still have the notebook I wrote everything down in. It’s kind of sad to look through again at how lonely and sad I was back then. Even worse is that some of the things haven’t changed despite my “amazing transformation.” If you’re fat and think everything about your life will change when you lose weight you’re kidding yourself. Things do get better. A lot better. But you’re still a bum who all the girls think are weird. You’re not the fat kid anymore. Now you’re the kid who used to be fat and now is just oddly shaped. Kind of like a nutty candy bar that has been stepped on.

I tried to pass this book along to others. I had this “Pay it Forward” fantasy in my head that the book would be passed along from fat kid to fat kid. We’d all shape our lives differently thanks to the kindness of friends helping us realize our full potential. That never happened. The book became mostly an object to collect dust and be ignored. The book pretty much became the same as those who possessed it.

The first person I gave it to told me he weighed 270 pounds. At my peak, I was 256. That’s 17 pounds more than Homer Simpson weighs if you’re keeping score. I don’t have anything else to say about that except to watch your donut consumption. It’s hard to lose track and pretty soon you’re a 16-year-old the size of a 35-year-old fat cartoon character. My friend insisted that he did the 30 day cycle twice and lost 20 pounds on it. I asked him how much he weighed now and he said 275. I’m no math expert but somebody was lying. I think it was him. I think it was him about even trying it at all. The second person I gave the book to admitted that he never even opened it. The last time I ever saw him I asked for it back. I don’t know why I wanted it back so badly. I guess it was still fresh in my head how it had helped change me that it was important for me to keep. He gave it back and we insisted that we’d hangout a lot once he went away to college. I’m not even sure if he’s alive or dead now. I guess that’s part of growing up. Having to wait until you see the ghost of a dead friend to know if they’ve passed over or not.

(This plus 17 pounds was my mid-teen years? And they say suicide is never an option…)

Others still never wanted the book. As much as I begged and pleaded with them that it could help, they refused. I almost don’t blame them. I was telling fat teenage boys to not only exercise and eat right, but also to read. What a bastard move. The excuse most of them gave me was “I want to lose the weight on my own.” None of them ever did. There’s nothing wrong with asking for help or taking advice. We all do it. Receiving advice is a way of not making the same mistakes other people have. Why should we all make the same mistakes over and over again? If you already know it’s not going to turn out well then skip over the heroin addiction. Nobody’s life ever got better from taking drugs. Unless they had cancer, but how can things get any worse from having cancer? Having cancer and being stuck in the hospital with Nickelback playing on loop?

Here’s some advice for you. Listen to all advice that people give you. If it seems viable, give it a shot. If it fails, you know they were a loser. You should also give out as much advice as possible. Never hesitate to offer your opinion on the matter to someone else. Most people want advice. They want to know they’re not alone and that they’re at least headed in the right direction. Lend a helping hand to others. Don’t be a fucking asshole. And most importantly, don’t insist that you can do it on your own unless you truly believe it. Most things are hard to do alone. Especially when you’re a fat teenage boy with few redeeming qualities outside of taking up space.

(At least he’s watching something with subtitles. That’s kind of like exercising, right?)

Fat Kid Advantages

I used to be a really fat kid. Like really fat. Like so fat that people don’t make fun of you to your face fat. That kind of fat.

Looking back (which was difficult to do when I was so overweight) maybe they did make fun of me to my face. When people get too fat their faces all look the same. It’s like how you can see a midget’s face and know that it is a midget. Yes, I use the word midget. Calling them little people is too trendy and has to be offensive to children, the true little people in this world.

Growing up overweight is difficult. Everybody knows that. Fat kids are often the target of ridicule and I don’t blame the bullies for that. Fat kids are too easy to make fun of. I still make fun of them. If I’m driving and see a fat child waiting for the bus, I’ll shout something out at him. Lucky for fat kids, I rarely wake up before 9:30. They’re usually already stealing lunches by then.

Keep in mind, my advantages here are based on my own experience. They only pertain to people who were fat and no longer are. If you grew up fat, remained fat, and died fat then I guess there are no real advantages except for always being recognized by old friends. And really, isn’t that a disadvantage?

1) Clothing

I can fit into clothing that I could fit into when I was 12. This isn’t in the same oddly sexy way an 18-year-old girl will wear her DARE t-shirt from 5^th grade (Safety Town shirts for those who are familiar with what that is). This is an advantage for me now because old stuff is cool again. I was a 90s kid and t-shirts from the 90s are absolutely trendy. Thrift stores are every hipster’s favorite place to shop. I don’t need to do that. I can just put on Ninja Turtles and Lenny Dykstra t-shirts that I used to wear when I was 7. It saves me from all the problems that those thrift store girls with the piercing and multicolored hair can give you when trying to ask them questions. Never trust someone with more than one hair color. Even then one of the colors should be grey and it should be two colors because of a bad dye job.

2) Reconnecting

It’s great to run into old people who haven’t seen me in years. They’re always amazed that I’m not a complete fat piece of shit. They had low expectations of me. These are just the trusted adults that watched over me as a young boy too. Girls are always also automatically more attracted to former fatties. The same goes for guys. You’ve seen what they look like fat and didn’t like it. Anything better than that fat mess you used to be is stunningly beautiful.

There’s a guy I know that used to be fat. To be honest, he still is fat. He has really bad posture. Every time I see him I go home and stretch out my back just so I don’t end up with a hunchback like him. He carries around a picture of himself when he used to be fat. He shows people this. Why? Because chicks will find him less repulsive now then the way he looks in that picture. Fucking high-shouldered creep.

3) Excuses

I get to make a lot of excuses by having a past that involved making it difficult to get through doorways. If people think that I didn’t do enough cool things or have a lot of friends when I was younger, I explain to them that I was overweight. It negates everything. It automatically makes me a late bloomer. My past discretion allow for me to be a failure now too. When I rarely screw up and am yelled at, I just remind whoever is hollering that “at least I’m not fat.” That usually makes them feel better for some odd reason. Nobody likes the company of fat people. Except for those birds that sit on the backs of hippos.

4) Understanding

Fat people are always the most understanding. Usually the older they get, the more friends they have. They are friendly because they grew up having to be that way. Nobody wanted anything else from them except to be fed compliments. Once you’ve been fat you can put yourself in the shoes of any other victim. No matter what language you speak or what religion you follow, fat people are universally a joke. When you need an ear to listen, turn to the fattest fuck you know.

5) Metabolism

It’s almost impossible for me to gain too much weight now. I try to take care of myself and can be strict at times, but even without paying attention my weight never fluctuates more than 10 pounds of my average. My metabolism is so high now that I chomp down entire boxes of cereal, packages of cheese, sticks of butter, and it never really has effected me. Sure, I’ve had to shit a lot the next day or felt really sick, but I haven’t put on much weight from it.

Your body never really adjusts to the way it functions once you lose weight. It still wants you to stuff yourself with peanut butter candies and pudding on top of a fried cake with a side of raw cookie dough. I can eat like an average fat person and my body thinks it’s me eating healthy. Screw exploring space. Our bodies are much more interesting and mysterious. At least mine. Come explore it.