The Diaries of a Fat Chick

Over at Pajiba, the lovely Sarah put up an interesting comment diversion.  She wants to know the dumbest outfit you were ever forced to wear at work.  I shared this:

My first job out of college was working for a public speaking company as the receptionist.  They were big into team building activities etc. and about six months into my job they did a team building weekend retreat thing.  The entire office (which consisted of about 7 people) spent the night at this lodge in the middle of nowhere and then we all went white water rafting the next morning.

What does this have to do with horrible outfit at work?  I’m getting to it; hold your water.

So, we pull up to the white water rafting company and these two young, hard-bodied gorgeous men come bounding out of the office and greet us heartily.  First thing we need to do, they say, is get you suited up.  I freeze midstep at the words “suited up” and look at the other admin person like a deer in the headlights. 

With fear and trepidation I trail after the rest of the group into the far building.  Hanging on the wall are various wet suits, the two young, gorgeous, hot bodied men eye us all up and down and start picking out wet suits suitable for our various body sizes.

The problem, of course, is that I’m fat.  I’m sweating bullets while they’re grabbing the suits; imagining them turning towards me and saying “I’m sorry ma’am, there ain’t a wet suit in the world that will stretch to fit that ass”.  In retrospect, that would have been less humiliating then the actual turn of events.

The blonde one handed me a wet suit (size - 4 x) and I began the arduous task of squeezing my, let’s call it, voluptuous body into the damn suit.  I’ll spare you the gory details but let’s just say that the copious amounts of sweating I did earlier actually assisted in the process and there was a lot of grunting and heavy breathing involved.  Once I was crammed into the suit, they zipped me up, buckled me into a too-snug life vest and secured a helmet onto my head. 

You know how sometimes you’ll see a semi-large person riding a bike in those spandex shorts, how they kind of bulge over the sides of the seat and every dimple of cellulite is shared in all it’s cottagey cheese glory?

You want to look away, and you try, you honestly do - but it’s like some kind of terrible car wreck and you watch it with a horrific fascination until it jiggles its way out of your line of vision.  Picture that, only it’s my entire fat body covered in way too snug spandex and I’m jiggling and waddling my way to a large rubber raft where I will be forced to paddle my way through rapids with two impossibly gorgeous men and possibly die with six of my co-workers.

And that, my friends, was the worst outfit I ever had to wear for a job.