OK, let me just put this out there for everyone to see: I am
terrified of my sister’s upcoming nuptials. Oh, I’m not afraid of
her getting married
– although I do think her fiancee is the bravest man on earth,
just short of Harry.
OK, let me just put this out there for everyone to see: I am terrified of my sister’s upcoming nuptials. Oh, I’m not afraid of her getting married – although I do think her fiancee is the bravest man on earth, just short of Harry. And I’m not even afraid she’ll kill me in one of her very frightening Bridezilla rages. OK, I’m a little afraid of that, but in my defense, there is nothing scarier than my sister in full ‘zilla rage. But I am very, very afraid that I will look like an overstuffed turkey in my bridesmaid dress.
Look, the truth is, I have always been one with my chubbiness. Frankly, I believe that it just doesn’t matter. I’ve done the diet thing. I’ve done the no diet thing. And I like the no diet thing. I’m a live-to-eat person, not an eat-to-live person. And honestly, dieting makes me cranky. I don’t do cranky well. People run from me when I’m cranky.
But that darned wedding has me rethinking my whole philosophy on life. I don’t want to waddle down the aisle. And I don’t want people to ask who the bride’s sister is, only to be told, “She’s the chubby one.” So I have done something I hate. Something so horrifying the very word has been forbidden in my home for decades.
I am on a diet. And I am starving to death. I’m not kidding. I only wish I were. Now, I didn’t enter into this whole diet thing lightly. I checked out my options. Turns out with a butt the size of mine, there aren’t many options from which to choose. I could wear any of the many garments that are designed for chubbies like me to look thin. Or in my case, less chubby.
Basically, these garments are made out of some space-age material that suck all your fat in, instantly making you lose inches. Now that sounds like a great idea. But I found in my quest for the perfect suck-in garment that there is a huge problem with them.
That fat that you’ve just squished into a spandex tube has to go someplace. It rolls up, making you look like you have about 20 chins stuffed around your neck. And you can forget about breathing. Apparently, your lungs are part of the whole 20-chin thing.
Because I like to breathe, I decided to diet. Specifically, I decided to go on a diet that provided all the food for me. I did this because I am notoriously bad at calorie counting and portion control. And willpower. Look, I have a butt this size for a reason.
So nearly three weeks ago, a huge box came with my meals for the month. The food sounded so good. The packages had names like pasta penne, chicken with home-style noodles, Thai beef with peanut sauce.
Unfortunately, what is in those packages isn’t exactly the same thing. Take the vegetarian sloppy Joes for example. I swear I gagged that down. It very closely resembled something you find in a diaper. And it smelled like something you’d find a diaper as well.
And then there are the preparation instructions. Take the instructions on the thousand island with chicken package, for example:
No. 1. Open pouch.
No. 2. Pour over salad.
No. 3. Sob uncontrollably because your lack of willpower and giant butt have driven you to eat something that resembles lumpy phlegm on a plate of leafy lettuce.
OK, maybe, just maybe No. 3 was my imagination, but I swear to you, it didn’t look anything like thousand island dressing. Or chicken. Or even anything that actual humans eat, for that matter. I can only thank heavens it neither looked nor smelled like a full diaper.
But I am doing this. And I was actually really proud of my willpower – and apparent suppression of my smell and taste senses – until yesterday. That’s the day Harry waltzed into the house and blithely announced that just by cutting his carbs he’d lost 20 pounds in three days.
I swear to you, I wanted use one of the suck-in garments to strangle him. I even considered force-feeding him vegetarian sloppy Joes. If he doesn’t gain all that weight back, I’m going to be very, very cranky. And nobody wants to see a chubby, cranky bridesmaid with 20 chins at the wedding.
