Fat Like Me

Damn those mirrors and tall, wide windows along the sidewalk. Damn photographs and even the occasional video camera. Without these inventions of reflection and electronics that capture the image as is, I would barely be aware that I’m fat. But fat I am.

I haven’t always been fat. I keep my high school year book at the ready to show friends and strangers the thinner, more muscular me. Some even believe those 31-year-old pictures are of me. Once they squint their eyes long enough, that is. On those same tattered and yellowed pages are pictures of my old swimming coach. I’m not sure who came up with his nickname – doubtfully me – but I remember chiming in and calling him “Pudge.” Why, I bet he was a whole 10 pounds overweight back then, perhaps tipping the scale at 175. We’d laugh, knowing we hit a sore spot with him and he’d always snap back that we would never be in as good of shape when we were his age; an ancient 27. Who’d believe that load? Well, talk about your all-time backfires, I pudged past him within five years and now I wish I could fit one leg in his jeans.

When you’re in your weight-gaining training you start to put on enough pounds that people you haven’t seen in a while begin to notice. Your old “friends” make clever references to the fact they’d always wanted to “see more” of you, and later they point out how I am now “twice the man” I used to be, or that I have more chins than a Chinese phone book. You smile back as if their now-common affront is charming. But that silly grin on your face looks more like you just bit into a peanut butter and sand sandwich.

Eventually you make up stories. I remember playing a basketball game with strangers and when it came time to pick teams, the team captain pointed at me and said he’d take the fat guy. I later told him I had weighed 300 pounds and worked hard to lose 100 pounds so he should cut me some slack. He actually began to admire me as all he needed was a change of perspective. I also had a doozey in which I told people I was writing a book called “Fat Like Me” and had to gain weight to live the life of a fatty. But something went wrong with the fat injections and I was forced to live this way the rest of my life. People found my artistic realism “refreshing” after hearing that story.

The thing about fighting the battle with gaining weight is that it’s not something you can claim victory at in a day, or a week or month for that matter. There are days you get indignant and stare at that sagging waistline in the mirror, vowing to defeat it before it defeats you. But you only get annoyed enough for a few skirmishes before you start thinking a few slices of pumpkin pie won’t hurt anything. Ah, but pumpkin pie is like a gateway drug and pretty soon you’re sneaking a giant size Snicker’s bar at the movies and before you know it, you’re strung out on Oreos. Soon you’re walking up to a 7-11 and telling the 19-year-old clerk (who, incidentally, doesn’t have an ounce of fat on him), “Man, I gotta have some chocolate. You gotta give me some. Forget the gas, give me 10 Hershey bars!”

Here’s the part I don’t understand: it took me a good 15 years before I “filled” out. I didn’t gain weight every day. Why the hell do I have to work at losing weight ever day then? This is where I wonder if it would have been a good thing to pay attention in biology class because maybe I missed something important about body chemistry or the wonder of metabolism. Or maybe I shouldn’t have given my father that self-assured smirk when he pointed out I was putting on a few pounds and might end up overweight like him if I wasn’t careful. Geez, dad, I was an athlete! Dieting is for girls and members of the Village People, I told him. If only I could have seen through the fog of teen angst and realized my dad was actually making sense back then, just like he was about getting a good education. It’s why I blame him for everything. If only he’d gotten through to me I’d be an educated, skinny, middle-aged bastard, which has a better ring to it than ignorant, balding, fat bastard.

Thanks to modern culture there is some hope for me. We celebrate nearly every oddball cross section of Humanity on MTV and the major networks, and they have finally gotten around to fat people. There are the shows Fat Actress and the Biggest Loser where fat people shine. Thanks to Hollywood, fat people have become chic. Some day I hope to get on one of these shows, but for now, I can revel in the fact that I was fat before being fat was cool. Perhaps just knowing you’re a trailblazer is enough.