Wait, Weight, I'll Tell You

Prose Post #2, Label: Mother, Diet, Body

     I’m eight or nine years old and my mother and I are entering a grocery store.  Near the entrance, she says, “Go look for –  Y’ know.” 

      I go.  I’ve done this.  I do this.  If there’s a larger woman than my mom, she calms down, she laughs, she’s free.  If there isn’t, she’s self-conscious, distracted, self-hate eats her inside out. 

     I look up each aisle, then circle back.   

     “On aisle 3, there’s a very, very fat woman.” 

     “How old?”     

     “Ummm…  I think, old?”

Off my mother’s exasperated look, my eyes widen. 

“Why do you think she’s old?”

       I think.  I say, “Because her hair is gray?” 

     “Then that doesn’t count.” 

      “Why?”

      

“If you’re old, it doesn’t matter anymore.   Get some onions and a head of iceberg and meet me in soup.” 

      I’m so good at this.  I am all compliance which means my mother is all happiness.  I plop the lettuce and the onions into the gaping steel mesh mouth of the cart.     

     My mother says, “Don’t remember that I asked you to do that.”

      I look at her confused.

     She sighs, self-conscious, and mumbling. “About finding the fat lady.”   

      “You always say that.”

But the compliance high is strong in me.

“It’s okay, mom. I won’t remember.”