Memoirs of a Fat Girl

Scene: a classroom at your local community college.

Event: Culinary Math. Even chefs can’t escape numbers.

Reason: Work, for me.

There’s an hour of class time left, but most of the students have filtered out in favour of hallway gossip and smokes outside. There are only five people left in the room: Me, my student Brian, a boy with a permanent open-mouthed gape, a girl in kitchen pants, and the instructor, a fast food chain owner shaped like a big eggplant.

Everyone is engaged in a conversation about formulaic bla bla that is usually beyond my scope. If I’d liked math in school, lord knows I’d be having coffee in a hospital doctor’s lounge right now instead of taking notes. Kitchen Pants asks some kind of question, Eggplant responds in kind, then shuffles over to our side of the room and to our table where he whispers loudly to my student, “She said it like that because she’s a woman.”

I’m not allowed to speak in class, but my mouth doesn’t often grasp this concept. “What did you say?”

Eggplant does a double take, since he’s never heard me really talk before. “I mean… I said… What I meant was…. Aren’t you only supposed to be an impartial observer?”

Ha! Like he’s familiar with the terms of my contract. I leaned forward and said, a bit quieter, “I can do a lot more than observe, you know.”

Eggplant blinked once, twice, then opened his mouth but nothing came out. He stared at me like that for a good half minute, then turned around and resumed with the lesson.

I love blindsiding assholes. Especially because I’m a woman.