I'm Chubby, and You're Chubby Too

While working at a temp agency a year or so ago, I came across the most glamorous of temporary job opportunities. It had everything I had ever wanted: Warehouse? Check. No air conditioning? Yes.  The possibility of having my job terminated at any moment? Check (I liked living on the edge).  An all-male environment of coworkers with criminal backgrounds? Check! Heavy, backbreaking labor? You betcha. Low wages? Always.

I knew I had to act fast before my spot was filled. I scooped that position up like a cheesesteak in Jersey and never looked back.   After all, I love sweating myself a shower.

The work was simple and straightforward – take all the heavy boxes off of the pallet that was sent, arrange them in numerical order by shipping code on the floor, and put them back up on a new pallet in order. Seems mundane? Counter-productive? My friends, you simply do not understand the sheer genius of this design. Why should the shippers put the boxes in numerical order in the first place, when the receivers could hire a bunch of people to redo it all for them?

Exactly. It makes perfect sense.

Day Two: The only floor fan we had to blow warm air across our slave-driven backs has broken. No plans of bringing in a new one. The foreman refuses to open the windows or doors for ventilation. Morale is low. The crew grumbles, but to no avail.

The work must go on.

A few hours in, we receive a fresh recruit. A short, rounded male, possibly younger than myself. I smile at him in a half-grimace as I lug a box more than half my weight over to a pallet. I wanted to offer a polite gesture of comradery, nothing more. After all, we were in an inhospitable land.

He smiled back, and I carried on. As we past one another back and forth from one pallet to the next, he tried to start up some small chat. I did my best to follow, but since we only walked by one another for a couple seconds at a time, it made for difficult conversation. He didn’t talk to anyone else, but then, no one else was very forthcoming. They just didn’t operate that way, my merry band of criminals.

Despite all the other luxuries of the job, we were still offered a half an hour lunch break on top of it. Once the words “Break!” came screeching out of the foreman’s hoarse, smoke-riddled lungs, I promptly scooped up my lunch bag and headed for the door. On my way out, I was intercepted by the new guy – named Ted (why not?).

“Man, I wish I had packed a lunch, I’m starving. I thought this place was going to be closer to fast food.”

I looked at him, and nodded sympathetically as I made my way to Clifford, the Big Red Truck, whom I drove to work. Ted followed, like a lost puppy.

“I rode my bike, so I can’t even go get anything….” He sighed dramatically, staring with envious eyes at my vehicle, his possible salvation.

Oh crap. I so looked forward to eating my lunch in air-conditioned silence, but that nagging Good Samaritan in the back of my head wouldn’t let up.

“I could…drive you to get something,” I offered hesitantly, not meeting him in the eye. Ted did not need to be asked twice. He hopped into the passenger seat and stated that he wanted some Kentucky Fried Chicken - KFC.

I blinked a few times at the request.  I wasn’t sure if he was messing with me and was about to tell me not to be so prejudiced, that he was just kidding and that whole thing is a stereotype. After seeing he was perfectly serious, I got more comfortable and drove off for the land of chicken-y goodness.

After picking up some food and returning to our warehouse parking lot, I parked and we sat in awkward silence for a moment or two. Was he going to get out of my car?

Nope, he liked the air conditioning too. Okay, fair enough. He was still a stranger but at least he was friendly. We both starting eating our respective lunches, enjoying a little casual conversation. I had already mentioned I had a boyfriend at the time, but it didn’t dissuade him from what he would say next.

“I was kind of drawn to you when we first met.”

Two hours ago??

I squirmed in my chair. “Oh, yeah?” Maybe he wasn’t getting at what I thought he was getting at.

“Y’know your smile, and you’re the only girl. Plus, I’m chubby, and you’re chubby too.”

I almost choked on my Doritos.

“I’m not sure what to say?” I mumbled awkwardly, still trying to appear nice. I had this problem, I’m going to call it “Nice Girl Syndrome”, where I was still kind to someone after they directly insulted me.

He chuckled as he bit into another piece of chicken. “Usually I don’t like girls like you who seem really preppy, like that bratty (I’m editing that) cheerleader type. But you’re so down to earth, I think because you’re a little fat and it makes you more relatable.”

GTFO. If I had the kind of self-respect that I have today, I would have drop kicked him in the face and knocked him out of the side of the truck, then backed up and run over him twice.

Instead, I nodded my head and returned to my Doritos, which I promptly stuffed into my lunchbox. For some super weird and totally unrelated reason, I wasn’t hungry anymore.

The next day, and the day after that, he tried to eat lunch with me again, but I evaded Ted for the most part. Although, he did come up to my truck window and smack his hands against it while I sat quietly eating, almost making me spit apple juice across my windshield in a “World of Colors” moment, Disney style.

Despite his declaration that he “also had a girlfriend”, somehow, I wasn’t buying it. Maybe because, when carrying boxes around the warehouse, he kept coming up behind me and flirtatiously poking me in the sides. I didn’t encourage it, but then, I didn’t exactly stop it either. I wasn’t sure WHAT I was supposed to do in this situation. I could have reported him, sure, but this place didn’t exactly have an HR Department set up in it. I appeased myself with the knowledge that this job would soon come to an end, and spent most of my focus on thinking up ways to avoid Ted altogether.

I may or may not have hit the all-time low of eating my lunch in an abandoned, cobwebbed filled part of the warehouse to hide like a little girl. Maybe, but I’m not on trial here.

Ted still tried asking me for rides home, since I had a truck and he could theoretically put his bike in the back of it. You know, if I didn’t hate his guts. I made up a plethora of excuses as to why I couldn’t help him, including that I was going in the opposite direction, or was headed straight for an appointment, etc. You know the drill, ladies.

Finally, after poking my stomach like I was the Pillsbury Doughboy one too many times, I snapped at him (in a nice way, naturally). I told him, somewhat jokingly, that pointing out a woman’s weight was not doing him any favors, while I made certain he could see the warning look in my eyes.

Ted finally got some sort of hint, because he at least started to let me eat my lunch in peace. He still had his moments, but I smirked smugly when he asked how old I was, and he looked appalled when I said twenty-three. He was eighteen. I was too old for him….or was I? I could see the words “sugar momma” forming in the clouds of his eyes before I quickly scurried off.

Half-way through the work day on a Friday, we were told that our job was finished, and we would need to return to the temp agency to find a new position.

Trumpets blew, a chorus sang merrily, Hallelujah reverberated against the walls!

Chelsey (he couldn’t quite get my name figured out), the spinster, flabby cheerleader of old, was free.

Until next week, when I started a new temp job and Ted waved at me from the end of the assembly line.

Oh, I am fortune’s fool.