Okay, so I realize it’s been a long time since I posted anything on this site (Author’s Note: I did technically write ¾ of the “About Us” section at the top. Please take the time to read that now). I swear it’s been really crazy at work; many times leaving me either too tired to write or too in need of a drink to care. In fact, I’m writing the rough draft of this on a table down in detention while I wait for my unit to come back. My apologies for the delay, podcasts were supposed to ensure these hiati don’t happen. In the future I will just use guests instead of waiting for Alex, Zak, and I to be in the same room.
So… during the break I got called “fat boy” by the opposing team in what had been an otherwise friendly game of flag football. “Man,” I thought to myself in between wheezing inhalations, “that would be a great topic to write about in ‘Pudgy Ponderings’”. Unfortunately, my self-imposed statute of limitations on such events ran out so I feel like I can no longer accurately describe my thoughts at such an emotional moment.
Great news though gang; it happened again! Hooray! That’s right, in two out of three of my first games in a flag football league, the other team has commented on my curvaceous contours. Nothing quite like the ridicule of complete strangers to send an emotional eater spiraling into the depths of a Digornos-enhanced depression (Author’s Note: The rising crust and my tummy are metaphorically connected in as much as both are invitingly soft and chewy).
The first time it happened I kind of froze up; I mean who honestly expects to be mocked by an opposing team with players wearing actual jerseys and real football pants to a Saturday morning flag football league? Besides, I was really hung over. One of my team mates, Chris, a particularly feisty young man of approximately my height (read: approaching midge status) immediately raced to my defense and got up in the guy’s face but I felt compelled to intervene and inform him, “Nah, man, its cool. I really am fat”.
The second time I was much more on the ball, thinking aloud to both the teams who were approaching the line of scrimmage something along the lines of: “That’s the second time I’ve been called fat in this league. If one person calls you fat, they’re probably an asshole. When it happens again, I can’t help but think they might be on to something”.
Everyone within ear shot laughed and it helped to diffuse some of the tension that had been building up between two groups of men who had clearly forgotten that we’re playing a sport where it’s considered too aggressive to slap at another person’s hand when they’re reaching towards your crotch. Still, it was kind of emasculating to have to accept an unprovoked insult for the good of the team. Besides, I was left with a burning question to the young (though probably older) men who would “call me out” like that: What the f***?
Seriously you gaping assholes, what the f*** is your problem? If you are upset about my play, it probably means you’re guarding me. If you’re guarding me, that probably means you’re lined up in the exact middle of the field. If you’re lined up in the middle of the field in a flag football game, it means you have some deficit bordering on physical retardation or they would let you go stand at one of the athletic positions. Be it fat (me), hilariously fun-sized for an angry black man (guy number one), or merely a sympathy-invoking level of inept (guy number two), we all have something we’re not particularly proud of. Can’t we all just get along?
Since it happened twice, I guess the answer is a resounding “no”. It’s strange, I haven’t seen anybody getting bested in a quasi-sport resort to calling someone names since I was in elementary school (Author’s Note: That’s right, I kind of glossed over it there but I would like to point out that I’m better at sports than either of those people who took exception to my enormity. Bitches). I guess I hadn’t really thought that anyone could be reduced to the frustration-induced, narrow-eyed temper tantrums after they turned the age where we learn to drink away our problems.
Moreover, I guess I hadn’t really thought about being fat. Yeah, I say it all the time; I even publish it for all my friends to read. I just hadn’t extrapolated my own image issues to consider that perfect strangers must see me and think, “That’s a fat guy”. I mean, I am a fat guy, but that’s not all I am. Most of you reading know that, and I guess I had always allowed my accomplishments and my actions to filter the way I perceived myself. Of course that’s what we’re supposed to do as a society with everyone, but I know I rarely do; I judge the hell out of people like my name was Daniel Joe Brown Judy Mills Lane. Because I behave that way and I am a rational human being, I can safely assume that to most every other rational human being outside of my social network, I would immediately register as a dude who could stand to lose a few pounds, or possibly just buy bigger pants.
That last paragraph may not have made sense but the realization that, in such an image conscious society, you literally are what you eat to a stranger passing you on the street, was very startling to me. In a Disney movie, it would be the kind of startling that inspires me to be work hard all throughout a montage set to a particularly uplifting Miley Cirus song. In the real world, it was the kind of startling that made me feel hopeless and stop going to the gym for two weeks.
Time to get back on track; though, until said track yields results, I will remain a lo mein dinner combination in tight khaki pants shuffling my way towards the line of scrimmage. Just make sure to leave me a set of the extra large flags with the green buckle. In case you didn’t hear the other team; I’m still a fat boy.
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