Boom-Baba Boom-Baba

“Your butt is wide, well mine is too
Just watch your mouth, or I'll sit on you
The word is out, better treat me right
'Cause I'm the king of cellulite
Ham on, ham on, ham on whole wheat, all right”

- "Fat" Weird Al Yankovic




Are you overweight?

Have you ever known the joys of needing two seats on a bus or airplane?

Do you fear going somewhere and learning the toilets are undersized?

Do you have to buy new pants and shorts with alarming regularity because you wear through the fabric on the inner thighs?

Do you purposely wait until everyone else has gotten their food before you do so you don’t look like a pig?

Do you know the shame of not being able to reach all of the ways back when you’re wiping and having to wear your soiled shame until you can slip away and change your underwear?

Are you covered in stretch marks that inevitably become the home for painful pimples?

Do you take multiple showers during the day because you sweat profusely, and the odor makes even you gag?

Are there times when you’re afraid to stand up because you might fall down and not be able to get back up?

When you eat, is there a rush of pleasure followed by a self-loathing so intense you want to die?

Are you treated like a joke, a burden, and a second class citizen in your own country?

In other words, Boils and Ghouls, are you FAT?

Americans have historically worshiped the fit and thin physical form. We like to see the body as a temple that must be maintained and honed. This view is reinforced by popular culture and media. We are constantly shown the “Beautiful People” and told how we can be like them if we weren’t so lazy and pathetic.

If we’re thin, we have worth, and if we’re not, we are worthless.

The irony of this is that the majority of us are overweight, in many cases morbidly so. I am part of that dynamic.

I am Josh, and I am morbidly obese.

I’ve always been heavy. When I was a kid, my weight, like of some many other fat kids, was the tool bullies used to humiliate me. I wasn’t brave back then, tell the truth and shame the devil I’ve never been brave, and I handled the bullying by being passive and doing my best t avoid confrontation. This was the tactic I used in stressful situations for the majority of my life.

Was my weight gain as I got older related to my molestation?

I’m sure it didn’t help, but I have to be honest and say that I probably would’ve been fat anyway. Life wasn’t easy for young Josh. Broken home, alcoholic father, a mother with a substance abuse problem, and well-meaning family members who regularly reminded me that I was chunky and needed to lose weight.

I’m not writing this to make people feel sorry for me. Just stating facts.

Like I said upstream, I was bullied. I wish I could say that I never made it easy for the bullies to do their business. But I did.

One time in third grade, I wore a pair of pants I knew were on their last leg. Halfway through the school day, I ran a little too fast, and the ass completely split out. I attempted to hide it out of shame, but of course, that was pointless.

Another time, in eighth grade, I wore a t-shirt so small that it made me look like I had an impressive set of boobs. All-day, I was humiliated with taunts and jeers. The worst was when one of the popular girls offered to give me her bra so that I wouldn’t jiggle like a whore.

These stories can stand for all of the others from when I was a kid.

The second half of my life has been a little easier when it comes to bullying. A few people have taken shots at me as an adult, but adult Josh is more likely to step to an asshole and hide the fact that he’s terrified to the point of nearly wetting himself during every second of the encounter.

Adult humiliation has been more personal.

All of the things in my opening questions have happened to me more than once.

The last several years have been quiet on the weight front. I haven’t really lost any weight, but I haven’t really gained any either. I’ve been oscillating around the same number (265) with a margin of ten pounds either way. I hadn’t suffered any humiliation, other than in private, in a few years.

That all changed two days ago.

After the incident I’m about to relate happened I was beyond pissed off at myself.

It was dark out and cold as fuck when I went to my truck to go to the store. The driver's side door was frozen shut. No surprise there, considering this is Ohio in mid-January. I opened the passenger side door and climbed over the center console slipping into the driver's seat. It was difficult, but I was in my driveway, and no one could see me, so I was unconcerned. Still, you want to talk about humiliating? Hauling my fat ass over that center area even with nobody watching left me hating myself more than a little bit.

I drove to the grocery store.

When I arrived at the store, the door was still stuck, but I managed to muscle it open from the inside, saving myself the humiliation of climbing over the center in a well-lit parking lot. Getting out, I closed the door, but it wouldn't latch. Thinking the mechanism was still stuck, I slammed the door. The door "latched" but it made a sound I didn't like.

I decided to deal with it when I finished shopping, I left it be.

When I returned to the truck, I tried the door, and it wouldn't open. The other doors opened easily, so I knew it wasn't still frozen. Then I made a mistake, I grasped the handle and pulled hard. Something in the handle mechanism let go.

With no other options, I loaded the groceries into the back of the truck and once more crawled in through the passenger side. This time lots of people saw me, and there was a clear snorting laugh from someone I never saw. To be upfront, I didn't look at any of the people. I didn't need to see the looks of ridicule or, worse, pity.

In many ways, the pity is worse than the scorn or amusement.

Once behind the driver's seat, I tried opening the door from the inside. As you can probably guess, there was no joy. I drove home, climbed over the center once again, unloaded the truck, and collapsed.

Not sure what I'm going to do.

I'm rubbish at all things mechanical, and I doubt I have the money to fix this at the moment. My only option is to risk humiliation every time I take the truck out. The very idea of that course of action makes me want to vomit and hide in the house, pretending there is no truck. Something that would be nothing more than an irritation or an annoyance to a reasonable person has me freaking out and considering burning my truck to the rims, so I never have to climb over the middle again.

I'm a fucking mess.

But I’m fat and an American.

We’re supposed to be ashamed,

We’re supposed to hate ourselves.

Our feelings don’t matter.

We are less than human.




- Josh (01/21/2020)