I talk of my diet constantly. I think of future events, not in terms of dates, but in terms of pounds. Not “We go to the beach on June twenty-sixth,” but “Only twenty more pounds, and we go to the beach.”
It amazes me that I willingly give the needle on the scale such incredible power over me. We fatties all know that it doesn’t really matter how much we weigh, only how we look and feel. If I could find a scale to weigh me in at 110 pounds, I’d still be overweight. I’d still have fat rolls around my middle. I’d still hate the way I look. Yet somehow, that nasty little needle does have an impact on how I feel about myself.
I found out today that fat people aren’t the only ones suffering from “fear of needles.” My friend Cindy has no visible fat on her body. Yesterday, I stopped by her house for a visit. She immediately informed me that she was thrilled because she had just lost ten pounds without even dieting. “Now I can tuck in my blouse! I feel great. See, aren’t I looking better?” She twirled around in front of me.
It was a cruel twist of fate that brought her husband out of the bathroom at that precise moment. Oh, cruel, cruel twist. “Cindy, I put a new battery in the scale. The other one was getting weak.” Yes, Cindy quit twirling. Cindy quit smiling. Cindy’s eyes opened wide in disbelief. See Cindy run to the bathroom. See Cindy step on the scale. Hear Cindy’s quick intake of breath. See Cindy come slowly out of the bathroom. See Cindy’s blouse untucked. Poor, poor Cindy. And yet…
Cindy was the same weight she had been only seconds before. But now, feeling fat, she could no longer tuck in her blouse. All this because of some dumb needle on some dumb scale. Crazy, isn’t it?
Then there’s Rosanne. She and I go back a long way. She struggles with her weight, too. Once, while conversing about our fat, we both cracked up over the story of her “skinny dress.” I’m not kidding; that’s what she called it—her skinny dress. From the first moment she tried it on, she felt sleek and sexy. Rosanne said, “When I looked in the mirror, I thought I looked practically thin. I kinda vamped my way out into the living room, where my husband was reading the paper. I took what I considered to be an alluring pose and then stood there waiting for him to notice how good I looked. He didn’t even glance up from his paper. I cleared my throat a few times, and he finally asked if I wanted something. Trying to sound a little coy, I asked, ‘Is it just me, or do I look almost skinny in this dress?’
“He lifted his eyes from his paper and gave me one quick appraisal. ‘It’s just you.’ Boy, was I shot down. But I felt so skinny in that dress that I was sure he was somehow wrong.
“I asked my daughter, who was within earshot in the kitchen, ‘Honey, what do you think?’
“It took her only a second to check me out. ‘Sorry, Mom, Dad’s right. It is just you.’ The crazy thing is, I still like to wear that dress. Despite their responses, it makes me feel skinny.”
Rosanne and I were practically rolling on the floor in hysterics by the time she finished telling that story. It was so stupid. A skinny dress. Can you believe that… course, I did have a pair of “magic shoes” once. No, I’m not kidding. They were magic. They were the cutest, voguest little things, made from a white, lacy material. And I swear to you, when I put them on, I became skinnier.
Now, I have large feet. I have never owned a pair of shoes that didn’t look something like oars for a rowboat… except for those magic shoes. They were darling just to look at. It always amazed me that my feet could even slip into them. In fact, that’s how I first knew they were magic. I returned to the shoe store to buy all the rest that they had in stock, but there were none left. Dang it!