A fat day in Asia

*I wrote this in November. After an additional six months of eating rice three times a day, fat days aren't quite so bad ;)
Hello everyone,

This story is a little longer and contains some vulgar language (just the f-word) so you may want to reconsider reading it. Keep in mind it’s meant to be funny and that I’m the kind of girl who would never really let a fat day get me down.

Once again, I love and miss you all,
Natalie

Having a fat day in North America can bring a girl to tears, but having a fat day in Asia can bring a girl to suicide.
I figure about every 45 days my eyes gain a super-power strength solely for magnifying wads of unsightly fat around my body. Thank God it comes a little less often than menstruation because I’m certain a single fat day is worse than a menstrual week.
The fat day usually starts the same way.
I am getting dressed in the morning, pulling up my underwear, when I notice a new cellulite cluster at the edge of the elastic, in the upper southeast part of my left cheek. What the heck? I swear to God it wasn’t there yesterday. How is this happening?
I poke the spot, twisting and turning my rear in hopes it’s not as bad as it first looked. Nope, still there. And my eyes are doing a fabulous job of helping me see this.
Well, that’s it. You really better get to the gym like you’ve been saying you would. It serves you right, Natalie. You don’t exercise and you don’t drink enough water. And you might be cursed with the cellulite gene, but it’s your own fault the damn things have manifested like this. And the new guests who have arrived on your ass aren’t going to leave on their own.
So I make a solemn promise to myself that tomorrow I’m going to get the schedule for classes at the on-campus fitness centre. It’s free, it couldn’t be more convenient, and as the ultra-eyes have pointed out, it’s necessary. I’m answering to the eyes like an unruly daughter to her parents, but my heart knows it’s all a lie.
Then I start to wonder if there are any other new formations on my skin and begin inspecting the obvious areas. My stomach. Yup, the belly button has almost disappeared into the burgeoning valley of my middle. Great. What about the love handles? Oh they’re definitely there, and with the ultra-eyes I can see that when I squeeze them another cellulite clan has set up camp there as well.
At the end of my examination I conclude it’s official: I am having a fat day. Well fat day, it’s been a while. I know why you’re here and that’s fine, you’ve got a job to do, but I’m just going to ignore your efforts if that’s all right.
This tactic never works. I know what to expect. I am going to be pissed off at myself, jealous of others and will think only about the foods that could make my fat day a fat life.
I have no idea that I’m about to have a whole different and far worse kind of fat day: a fat day in Asia.
I’m on a yellow skytrain seat, trying to use the extreme vision for a better view of the Bangkok skyline. I’m a little uncomfortable, twisting slightly to face the window, but the pain is not coming from my neck or my eyes or my sides. It’s my thighs.
My jeans are suddenly so tight the very fibers are scratching on the skin and when I move I can almost feel each individual thread, scraping for space. My legs are squeezed together because the seats are small and the train is crowded so when I look down I see a mass of denim that must have grown in width by a whole finger length since yesterday.
I start looking at the thighs of the woman, probably in her early thirties, beside me. I quickly looked back at my own and I know it’s a cliché to say, but seriously, one of my thighs was taking up the same amount of space as both of hers. She’s even wearing white. And when did my jeans get so tight? They must be shrinking from the hot water in the laundry machines. Fat day, I hate you.
“Next station, Victory Monument,” the overly-chipper skytrain voice announces. Thirty seconds later about 15 university girls pile into the aisle in their short black skirts and tight white shirts – a standard post-secondary uniform in Thailand.
See, now that’s what legs are supposed to look like. Two separate entities. Theirs are like a giraffe’s – long, lean and straight. Mine are like an elephant’s – thick trunks. I don’t remember ever feeling this fat on a fat day back home. These Asian women are making me feel like an ape in a land of chimps. I’ve never felt this mammoth in my life.
But I haven’t even gotten to the mall yet. On a fat day, a smart person would avoid the mall entirely, knowing it is a perfectly constructed trap where the ultra-eyes see only two things: skinnier people and clothes that don’t fit.
Unfortunately, I just got paid and I desperately need at least another skirt and some suitable shoes (heels and toes both covered) so I don’t get glares from the proper professors anymore.
I walk into a department store that is known for carrying farang (foreigner) sizes and head to a rack filled with a fat day repellent line: beige corduroy.
“Can I try an L please?” I ask the clerk, who is so tiny she could probably fit the clothes in the children’s department. Back home I was a small or maybe a medium. Here I am as big as it gets.
“L is 27,” she tells me, and starts leading me to the dressing room. “It’s OK?” she asks.
“Uh huh,” I say, on the verge of ultra-eye tears. On what planet is a 27 waist considered a large? Jesus, if this doesn’t fit, which is likely, I’m going to have to ask for a goddamned double XL.
I want to rip the skirt into threads and throw them at the clerk’s face and tell her she can have her L back, but instead I wait until I hear her shoes click off to help someone who can actually get half their hind into these bottoms before I bolt out of the change room and the floor and finally the department store. Fat day, I hope you’re enjoying this.
Somehow, I still have the bare minimum amount of confidence left to continue with my quest. Screw the skirts, I tell myself, just go find some shoes and then get the heck out of here.
Well, if I thought a shoe store would be a safe haven from the fat day, I was sorely wrong.
Bangkok shoe stores are lined from the ground to the heavens in varying pairs of sandals but I manage to spot a pair of basic black heels. The perfect Thai teacher shoe.
I hand one to a smiling young man and ask for a nine. A minute later he comes back, grinning even wider. “We no have nine.”
Super. That’s just super. I point to three other pairs and each time he shakes his head. Then he shows me a style where the middle of the shoe is open, and confirms they do carry “Ls” in it. I nod and pray as he leaves to get the box that when he returns I will be able to leave this building knowing there is at least one part of my body the fat day won’t reach.
After he returns he takes a few steps back as I prepare to put my toes into the shoe. Well, my foot is in at least, I think, and head towards the mirror. What I see is the last thing I need. My foot is hanging off both sides of the uncovered part. My feet look enormous, like man’s, like I am a drag queen trying to squish into, never mind walk in, this most basic sole.
I look up at the boy who is clearly thinking exactly what I am. His fucking feet could fit into these better than mine. And I thought my feet were narrow because in Canada shoes and boots were always too wide. Here I have the feet of a cross-dresser.
As I slip the shoes off he says “mai pen rai, mai pen rai,” which, roughly translated, means not to worry or never mind. This metrosexual knows I am in the depths of farang fat day hell.
But this fat day is not over. As I walk out into the mall aisles I get an idea and move towards a corner. It’s my last defense against slitting my wrists. I undo the first two buttons of my shirt and leave the mall with a hint of a smile. There is no part of my lower torso that can compete with Asian women.
The only thing I have on these girls is my breasts, and I can thank the fat for that.