The Return of the Fatty Helper

For a minute, I thought that I had left annoying "fatty helpers" behind in my life. Years ago, there was an old lady who gave out samples at the grocery store. Whenever I would go get a sample, she would tell me that she thought I should audition to be on The Biggest Loser. Apparently, once you got to a certain part in the competition, you were allowed to send for a friend or something, and she thought that it would be great if I sent for her, a woman that I didn't know outside of the hi and bye it took to get my sample. Then who can forget the time I was literally chased down outside of a different grocery store. I was casually walking my cart to the car when I heard speeding footsteps. I turned around to see a woman I didn't know coming at me full force! I literally screamed and tried to make a run for it, but duh, I can't run. This lady was on me like white on rice! She told me that she didn't mean to scare me, but she saw me in the store, and she simply had to know why I didn't get a gastric bypass. "Your insurance may pay for it," she told me. 

Yeah, I foolishly thought I was past this stage in my life, but surprise! Here comes social media, a brand new avenue to harass a bi$$h.  

A friend of a friend that I am sort of friendly with started messaging me a year or two ago. She would forward me posts of big people who were finding success losing weight, amongst other things. She sent me posts, "with love," from a friend of hers who was losing weight using some hula hoop contraption. After a while, she stopped messaging me, but the messages are now back. She sends healthy recipes and tips on things to eat to reduce swelling. 

I guess maturity really is something that just happens that you can't feel while you are living life, because I haven't blocked this lady or said anything snarky. I don't feel like her messages have malicious intent. They are just kind of tone deaf and unasked for. There was a time in my life when I would have told her a thing or two, but I don't feel that is appropriate here. Plus, I am old. It is easier to just see her messages, roll my eyes, and move on. I guess I am just grateful that she is not chasing me down the street with a hula hoop or something, but let's not count that possibility out. 

Homecoming Post 6: T is for Fataphobe

When you go to a small school like Xavier University, even when you don't know people you know people. It is like you are a part of an extended family. So I didn't really know Trent in school, but I knew him from a distance. He seemed like an okay guy. It was not until my interaction with him at homecoming that I realized that he is a fataphobe. 

I recall talking to Tortilla a few years back about fataphobes. I define them as people who hate or are disgusted by fat people. Oddly enough, I had not had a lot of experience with them. Sure, there had been people that didn't like me, but I always felt like that was because I was loud and had a really bad habit of saying wild, off the wall ish. Then my childhood friend Teensy got a boyfriend that was always weird around me. I didn't get the feeling that he didn't like me. It almost felt like he was afraid of me or something. 

"Yeah, he is a fataphobe," Teensy said regrettably at a dinner she was holding at her apartment. "I'm sorry he's being weird." I guess I should have been offended, but I was intrigued. I mean, he was VISABLY awkward around me. A couple of times during the dinner I thought that he was going to scream! At one point, I reached for a condiment bottle that was near his arm and he abruptly jumped to his feet and pretended to have to go to the bathroom. It was comedy! 

Fast forward to last weekend. I was at a homecoming event and saw Trent having a conversation with his ex-wife. 

Isn't that mature, I thought to myself, taking a seat next to them. There were about five feet between us. Now, he saw me walk over. He saw me sit down. Yet he did not speak. Now, if it's one thing I can not handle, it is rudeness. You speak when you see folks! That's just what you do! And I wasn't going to speak to him first, I'm the girl! 

What's this n*$ga's issue? I asked myself. But I stopped that line of negative mental questioning because my therapist warned me that thoughts like that are fruitless...before she dumped me. But she was right. Obviously, he didn't speak because he was in the middle of a conversation. DUH! Not a second after rationalizing this, he jumped to his feet and gave a bro hug and dap combo to this guy from our class. After some light chat with the guy, he sat down but turned himself in a manner that was strange and dare I say looked painful so that he didn't have to see me. My mouth dropped. What was that about?!

When he walked into the class tent at the tailgate the incident from the day before was still on my mind. Perhaps I would have thought I was trippin' if I had not watched him literally come in and speak to everyone else but me. Had I offended him at some point? I mean, when you often speak without thinking as I do, anything is possible. I just knew he was going to speak as he was about to leave the tent, but he actually sped up to try to get past me without my noticing. 

"Hey Trent!" I yelled so loudly that he had no choice but to stop. 

"Oh hey Holly!" he exclaimed as if he really hadn't seen me there. He was hella squirmy and antsy and off, and I had seen this same type of behavior before from Teensy's whack ex. It dawned on me: I was in the company of a real live fataphobe. 

Child, I wore Trent out with questions about his divorce and job and family and hobbies and anything else I could think of until he began to do this strange dance like he had to pee or something. He was beginning to sweat like Teensy's ex at the dinner party. I decided to let him go before he actually exploded, covering me in bloody, fataphobic bits. 

"It was good to see you Trent!" I said with a huge, fake smile. 

"You too!" he said, just as fake. 

A second later I turned around to see him collecting himself on the side of another tent, dry heaving. I smiled. It would have been funny if he would have hurled. Ass hole.