20141013_175425When I was growing up, I had a very sturdy build. Mom called me Fatboy way before I was anything approaching overweight. Lain shares my build. Like me at that age, though, she isn’t particularly fat.

Unless you ask some random lady at Walmart, anyway.

Last week I was at Walmart and Lain was reaching for some candy. A woman with her daughter were in the aisle with us. The daughter said that she wanted that candy. The mother said “You don’t want that candy, it will make you fat like her.”

I tried to glance behind me, mortified by whatever overweight lady had to be standing behind us. There was nobody behind us.

I don’t know if the woman herself was simply obese or actually morbidly obese, but she didn’t have a discernable chin either way. The daughter herself (between five and seven, I would guess) was starting to carry some extra baggage and the prognosis did not look good. So I guess I can sort of understand why she might be concerned. And, out of a sense of pride or dignity or something, why she wouldn’t use herself as a cautionary example.

I am still dumbfounded that she chose my daughter as some sort of cautionary tale. The best I can think of is that she didn’t really look at Lain and assumed that anybody shopping at Walmart late on a Sunday evening (around nine or so) was probably overweight.

I didn’t have a response. I was too confused to. Not that I would have said anything anyway. (Clancy wishes she was there, because she would have.)

Lain did not eat anything for dinner that night. We are hoping that this is not going to give her an eating disorder.


Category: Market

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2 Responses to Fatgirl

  1. fillyjonk says:

    I once -as an adult – had a fellow shopper make a snarky comment about the Oreos I was buying (I’m a heavyset woman). I was too dumbfounded to say anything to her (though later on, I wish I had). Part of it was that I was brought up to believe that that kind of comment to a perfect stranger was the height of impoliteness.

    I will note that the woman asked for a couple packs of smokes from the cashier after commenting on my Oreos. But I was too much of a lady to say ANYTHING.

    • trumwill says:

      Clancy’s weight was at a high point when she graduated from residency. At the residency banquet, they make a joke every resident’s expense. We figured it would be about her difficulty waking up in the morning or something. They made fun of one of the doctors for being kind of a lady’s man, another for having a whole bunch of kids. The joke involving my wife involved a picture of her eating Oreos, and was a direct reference to the weight she put on.

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