“Mom, am I fat?”
“No…its just baby fat.”
It wasn’t.
I was fat. Not kind of fat. Not chunky. Not big-boned. And definitely not baby fat. Baby fat is allowed till the age of what? Five? I was at least 10 when I asked my mom this infamous question. And the truth is, I was fat. Like ate spoonfuls of sugar at one time, fat. Stole candy bars from the grocery store, fat. Fat fat. Scurrying barefoot on the kitchen countertops looking for the elusive sugar that my parents “continently misplaced” two weeks after I was discovered in a corner eating spoonfuls of sugar, fat. (Those bastards.)
Walking into the grocery store on that autumn afternoon just seemed like the right moment to ask. I probably was going to steal a Snickers bar anyways, and that should have been proof enough but I wanted to hear it verbally. I wanted the words to ring in my ears; I wanted them to sear the fat right off of my love handles.
However, my plan backfired:
“No…its just baby fat.”
Wait…what? My mom just lied! Straight to my face. Wasn’t my mom, if anyone, supposed to tell her child that while yes, they had a stellar personality and yes, they were super funny, that sadly they were fat and kind of going through an, um I don’t know, ugly…I mean, awkward stage? How could she? How could she just lie like that?!
I stood there, shocked, in the middle of the crosswalk in my bright orange leggings with the elastic band, (I couldn’t technically fit into jeans until I was 14), oversized black sweater splattered with bright orange pumpkins and candy corn (to divert ones eye from the fat, of course), and bright orange pumpkin bow placed strategically in the middle of my disproportionate head. Yeah, I was that kid.
My mouth opened, but there was no food to shove into the black hole. How do I argue that?
“Nuh uh!”
But wasn’t that what I wanted to hear? Didn’t I want to hear that yes, I wasn’t fat? That yes, it was okay to steal candy? Yes, Cheese Whiz was a valid form of calcium? And yes in actuality, it’s vegetables that fuck you up?
It was in this moment that I learned a valuable lesson: Moms lie. They really do. Years later (and pounds skinner) I confronted my mom about this pivotal question in my chubby childhood:
“Oh god, you were soooooo fat!”
“I knew it. You lied to me!”
“Technically, but you were always skinnier than your brother.”
