Living Life in the Fat Lane

Chapter 3: Damned if you do

Now what did I get myself into? I don’t need this kind of complication in my life. I was perfectly satisfied with the monotony of it all, blissful in my solitary existence. I didn’t need to get out of my most comfortable comfort zone. What am I doing? He’ll be here in thirty minutes.

These are the thoughts running through my mind as I sit and wait anxiously for TJ. In between panic attacks I was able to squeeze in plucking my eyebrows and putting on eye makeup, finding the perfect gloss to match my lipstick and checking to see if my nostrils are Charlotte’s Web-free. It would be so embarrassing if something were peeking out.

Since I still have thirty minutes of work-faking to do, I decide to wear my work-faking face even if Mr. Boss is not around. His “press release” was that he had to go on a business trip with a colleague of his. What his wife doesn’t know is that said colleague is female, 5’8”, thirty years his junior, and goes by the name of Do-Me-Right-Debby. They are probably at some resort in Palawan where my boss always takes his “colleagues” for a much-needed ‘R and ‘R.

I wish I had the ability to stop time and unfreeze it only after I’d lost all the unwanted LBbs. When you’re abnormally big like I am, it’s hard to try to do social things expected of normal-sized people, like going out on dates. I know what other normal-sized people think when they see big gals like me out on romantic dates with normal-sized men. They see the men as gold-diggers and the women as desperate enough to actually believe the B.S. that the gold-digging Casanovas are dishing out.  They look at us and think that the right to dream about true love is reserved only for the thin. Even I am guilty of this. That’s how jaded I’ve become; I can’t even bring myself to believe that out there lies my happily-ever-after.

 Here I go again expecting too much from this one date. Lanie’s right. No expectations. Sparks or no sparks, by the end of the night I will have gotten a free meal, and maybe a glass of wine or two. TJ called me this morning to confirm. He seemed more anxious than I am about the whole thing. He was probably staring at the end of a rifle while talking to me - and Bong was most likely threatening to pull the trigger. Did I agree to a shotgun date? Oh my God! I think I got it! TJ lost to my brother in a game of poker and couldn’t pay so my brother forced him to ask me out on a date as payment. Now how do I tell TJ I know everything?

Beep…beep. Text message. It’s TJ, he’s waiting at the lobby. Here goes nothing.

I get to the lobby and am surprised to see TJ wearing an ear-to-ear grin. Hmm…he seems really happy to see me. He kisses me on the right cheek and tells me he left the car up front with the emergency lights on. He hurriedly recounts to me how he told the guard that he was going to pick up Congressman del Castillo and how the guard smiled sheepishly at the mere mention of the word “congressman”.

The guard takes the liberty to deliver a tasteless joke as he sees me getting into TJ’s car. He says, smiling widely, that I wasn’t Congressman del Castillo, but Ma’am Sexy.

Can I rip his head off and drink his blood now? I’m thinking Grendel here, with blood and yellow pus oozing from his severed neck. Now is not the right time to make weight-related jokes! Oh please God, please don’t let me blush! It’s so embarrassing to be embarrassed.

Surprisingly, TJ handles the situation really well. He shakes the guard’s hand as he slips him a hundred peso bill and smiles his most charming smile. Somehow I feel that the weight-related jokes stop today.

 “Impressive,” I tell TJ, complimenting his smooth moves. He says that being in sales, he has learned a great deal about how to handle people, which buttons to push, and which colors they respond to. Today’s color was purple, the color of the hundred peso bill. Of course it’s all dependent on “location, location, location.” Just like everything else in life. Put up a business and it’s “location, location, location.” Luck is just being at the right place at the right time. Once again it has something to do with location. Okay, so I’m going out with someone obsessed with real estate. I get what he means but to go on and on about it for ten minutes foretells the depth (or lack thereof) of the conversations I’m about to have with this man.