The Big Girls Guide Introduction

Being a big girl today is not easy. Im not referring to girls who think they are big, but girls like me, who think a size 18 outfit is but a dream. Even though lifestyle changes and dietary changes have resulted in more people being overweight than ever before, life is still pretty intimidating for a big girl. Before you start saying that I should make the best of things, and my figure is in my own hands, and so on, let me say this: I love myself. I am comfortable in my own body. I am an intelligent, educated woman with a job and lots of friends. I can do everything skinny women can do, although some things take a bit longer! With these pieces I do not intend to make fun of fuller-figured women, but I do want to share my experiences as a big girl with the world. Its not fun being a big girl, but it isnt that bad! I hope to provide an insight into my own insecurities, and perhaps other big girls can identify with what I write. Perhaps people who dont struggle with their weight will realise that there is more to big girls than just their bodies.

Shopping for Clothes

When most women hear the phraseShopping for Clothes, they experience an immediate physical reaction. Their hearts start racing in anticipation, their palms become itchy as they envision laying their hands on an astounding variety of outfits, their minds start seeing visions of themselves floating gracefully into a stylish restaurant and feeling adoring eyes on their new outfits. When Big Girls hear the phrase Shopping for Clothes, they also experience an immediate physical reaction. Their hearts start palpitating at the thought of tiny fitting cubicles with huge three-way mirrors. Their palms start sweating at the thought of rummaging through millions of flowery blouses in bigger sizes, looking for the one item that will not make them look like the Hanging Gardens of Babylon. Their minds start seeing visions of themselves in shapeless, formless outfits that seem fine on the size 16 model in the advert, but on them look like rejects from the linen department. Why is it that people who design clothes for women with a fuller figure feel the need to cover most of their designs in a floral print? You need a special kind of figure and confidence to successfully wear florals. A size 24 body with 44E boobs does not look flattering in a white blouse with red bloody flowers! Neither does it look good in those maternity-shaped tops, where the blouse has pleats right between the boobs and the stomach. No Big Girl looking for a man wants to look seven months pregnant all the damn time! Not to mention all-white outfits. Does the phrase fridge on legs mean anything to you? Anyway, once a Big Girl has managed to find a couple of items that will not make her look like a deranged wedding cake, she braves the fitting cubicle. Fitting cubicles are obviously designed by some spatially impaired person who enjoys toying with womens emotions. Not even really skinny women can get dressed comfortably in those things! Unless you are a yoga master, fitting clothes can be

as injury-inducing as a fierce rugby match. I cant see my toes under normal circumstances, but dressing in a fitting cubicle sometimes forces me to bend over backwards so far that I can touch my toes, never mind see them. Once the socalled outfit has been successfully put on, the Big Girl has to face The three-way mirror. Not even Eva Longoria looks good when seen in a threeway mirror, and shes someone who will look good wearing only an apron, gumboots and an old Chevy mud flap to cover her naughty bits. My belief is that few things in life shatter a Big Girls confidence as much as a three-way mirror. Every single flaw on your body is reflected from three different angles, not one of them even remotely flattering. You see parts of yourself in a three-way mirror that no human being should see without intensive drinking as preparation. And it is not as if the lighting in the cubicle is soft, calming and perhaps, dare I say, slimming. O no, fitting cubicles are fitted with the same lights that are used on airport runways so pilots can see them from the next continent. Nothing on earth can prepare a Big Girl for the sight of her body when spotlighted under 2500 watts worth of lighting. As soon as the fitting is taken care of, the Big Girl has to face the shop assistant whose punishment for showing up for work, is to man the cash register that day. Perhaps its just me, but it feels as if the assistant takes great pride in unfurling your chosen outfits, shaking the clothes ferociously before lifting the outfit high into the air so everyone can see proof that you wear a size 24 top. Needless to say the top is then unceremoniously dumped into a bag, but that fate is reserved for all shoppers, not only Big Girls. Since whole shops for Big Girls have come into existence, shopping for clothes has become less of an ordeal. You dont have to wade through hundreds of size 8 girls to get to your meagre section of the shop, and you are assured of the fact that all the women in the shop are experiencing the same emotions that you are. The Big Girl can now shop in relative comfort, the fitting cubicles are bigger with

only one mirror and flattering lighting. And if you glance around these shops, you see, wait for it outfits that arent covered in flowers and even have a semblance of fashion! O joy, o rapture! Big Girls are empowered to shop more and we now have the privilege to be saddled with the same amount of clothing debt than the rest of society! Whoopee! If only theyll move the clothing racks further apart so big girls can browse more comfortably

Shopping for Shoes

Shoes. Say it again. Shoes. Can you feel it? That tingling sensation in the pit of your stomach. The anticipation rising like a tsunami inside you. Shoes. Come on, you know what Im talking about! No self-respecting woman can pass a shoe shop without at least a cursory peek. No proper lady can walk into a shoe shop without fitting at least two pairs of shoes. No breathing female can look into their wardrobe without seeing at least one pair of shoes that maims their feet within two minutes of putting them on. When asked about it, their eyes glaze over and they stammer helplessly: They look so good on my feet. These same women will then hobble over to the nearest horizontal surface within falling distance, heave a sigh of relief, and get this, eye these objects of torture with adoration in their eyes. Even Big Girls like shoes. We will also be walking along innocently in a shopping centre, and all of a sudden, we will also experience that familiar tug in the direction of the nearest shoe emporium. Heres where the similarities end. Remember, we dont only have big bodies. No. We have wide feet. When you enter a shoe shop again, look around. Pay attention to how narrow all the lovely shoes are. See where Im heading with this? The only shoes that fit me properly are running shoes, Caterpillar boots, the occasional winter boot, imitation Crocs, and chunky slip-ons. No dainty sandals in my wardrobe. Not that I havent tried wearing modern shoes. At the age of twelve I was bridesmaid at my sisters wedding. I had to wear a pair of mother-of-pearl high heels. Half an hour into the ceremony I fainted. I maintain to this day that my fainting was owing to immense pressure on my feet. Then there was the time I actually bought myself a pair of dainty sandals. One hour after putting them on for the first time I had blisters the size of small icebergs on the tops of my feet.

Fortunately my dog relieved me of wearing them ever again by destroying all the decorations that were so carefully hand-sewn onto the sandals. Allow me to describe a shoe shopping session as it pertains to a Big Girl. You enter the shop with nothing but love for all in your heart. How else, youre shoe shopping! As you start browsing the shelves, you notice the narrowness of all the gorgeous shoes. You carefully test a couple of shoes to see how far wide they can go. Once youve relocated your fingers to their original positions, you move on to the next pair of shoes. Lo and behold, its a pair of sandals with those strappy things that wind sexily around the leg up to the knee or thereabouts. Not if youre a Big Girl. Once youve managed to squish your foot into the sandal, you manage to wind the straps around your ankle twice, before running out of strap. You yank the strap to get one of the holes aligned with the tiny buckle. After swearing profusely, you fasten the shoe. You look down in eager anticipation and see a pair of feet in the grips of a really slim anaconda furiously squeezing the life out of your ankles. Not attractive. Now you move on to the next pair of shoes. Your Big-Girl confidence was only slightly marred by the sandal fitting session. Its time to fit the zip-up boot. So sexy! Once youve managed to rouse the only shop assistant who knows where the sizes 8s are stored, you sit down to see how sexy your calves will look in these boots. Remember, most Big Girls have well-defined calves, so the excitement here is obvious. But alas. Again having to force your feet into shoes two centimetres wide, you attempt the zipper. It reaches just above your ankle before it halts like a stubborn two-year old in a toy shop. So scratch the boots and move right along to the Pointy-toed stilettos. Whose feet measurements do they use when designing these things?! Most normal women dont have a snowballs hope in hell of comfortably wearing these things, so what about big girls? Most Big Girls I know dont even try it. In my case, should I ever manage to put these freakishly stylish

on, youll hear the following as I stagger uncertainly towards shoe-heaven: Click, click, clickTHUD! Another dream shattered for this Big Girl. So I stick to comfortable shoes. After all, its the only kind of shoes I can put on and be mobile in. Every evening I remove these practical monstrosities and see nothing but happy, squiggling toes. No blisters, no bunions, no swollen feet, and damn it, absolutely no sex appeal.

Going Out Clubbing

Youre young, youre single, youre free. And youre going clubbing tonight! The rhythm of the music becoming one with your biological clock, making you feel sixteen again. The energy from your fellow clubbers inspiring you to dancing heights last reached in the final scenes of Dirty Dancing. The perspiring effort to find a dancing space in the packed club for your four skinny friends and you, the Big Girl. Most clusters of women will have at least one Big Girl in the group. Youll very seldom see the opposite, where you have a group of Big Girls with a token skinny girl. Before I carry on, let my state categorically that I love my friends to bits, skinny or not. No that thats taken care of, lets carry on with Clubbing 101 as presented by a Big Girl. Many Big Girls claim that they never suffer from feelings of acute selfconsciousness. They lie. All Big Girls feel self-conscious almost all of the time, especially when faced with crowds of people, as are often found in clubs. Even though no-one looks at you as you enter, it FEELS as if you are the immediate focus of all and sundry. One major advantage to being a Big Girl in a club is the fact that you get served quickly at the bar. Using a Big Girl to muscle her way to the front of the bar is in itself reason enough to take her along. A more cynical theory to the cause of the speedy service might be the fact that the barman feels the Big Girl is taking up space that could have been occupied by two, and in severe cases, even three pre-anorexic youths. Once the drinks are taken care of, its off to the dance floor. South African dance clubs are more often than not packed with a range of creatures. On the one hand you have the 15 year olds who managed to sneak into the club and are desperately hoping no-one sees them getting pissed and

attempting to dance. At the other end of the spectrum you have the late middleaged men and women, vainly trying to recapture days gone by. In the middle you have the twenty and thirty year olds who are out and about, and in my case, scanning for Mr Right. Unfortunately, most blokes in clubs are Mr Right-now-Ican-still-stand-up-straight-without-any-help-but-not-for-much-longer, and their yobo friends. These are usually the okes dancing with a beer in each hand and a smoke dangling from their lips. They try to dance in a sexy, provocative fashion, but all they manage is a mediocre imitation of a Golden Retriever humping an unsuspecting leg. Then you find your young, hip chicks. They are the ones wearing nothing, but when pushed will call their outfit a tank top and mini skirt. They disappear to the ladies frequently to make sure that not a gram of their 10kgs of make up has vaporised in the 5 minutes since they last went to the loo. They have a very cool dance move called standing still and looking around to see whos watching. Next you have your middle-aged group. These are the people who refuse to admit that their twenties and thirties are a thing of the past and are trying to blend with the crowd. Youll easily spot them in the crowd. They are the people who try to disco to Timbaland. The men always try to hit on younger girls and like to try their luck with Big Girls. Why? Because they think Big Girls are just longing for some male attention and might just be desperate enough to pay attention to them. Not this Big Girl! I might be big, but that doesnt mean Im gagging for a drunken, perverted middle-aged oom to notice me. Then you will find my group. The nice girls who enjoy going out for the sake of going out and having a jol. The girls who dont mind looking for a slightly bigger space so that they can comfortably accommodate the Big Girl. The girls who include the Big Girl in everything they do and encourage the Big Girl to partake in the silly dance moves they are constantly conjuring up. (Remember, when most Big Girls dance, it reminds ever so slightly of the Shosaloza Meyl running at full

steam, and even a hip thrust can be turned into a weapon of mass disruption. Being encouraged to dance by a skinny girl is a big thing!)The girls who dont even notice that Im a Big Girl and have never been ashamed of me. The type of girl who recently asked me to be Maid of Honour at her wedding, because to her I am a friend and not a Big Girl. Still, it would be nice to go to a club and meet a bloke who thinks this Big Girl is Da Bomb

Transforming into a Not-So Big Girl

Every Big Girl will reach a point in her life where she will decide not to be a Big Girl anymore. This can be achieved any number of ways. The Big Girl can buy slimming aids, like those shakes and pills we see on TV every other advertisement break. These shakes involve promises of losing heaps of weight in ridiculously short periods of time. Unfortunately, these things dont work if you dont follow their scientifically advanced dietary advice. This usually involves a shake for breakfast, a shake for lunch and two teaspoons of boiled potato for dinner. Oh yeah, for a special treat you are allowed to lick an orange and gaze longingly at a piece of steak. So obviously, this approach might not be the best one for a Big Girl. Then you can always go to a gym. Here you will find such a variety of human specimens that is a wonder that no National Geographic film crew has beset a suburban gym and made a documentary in which the whispering narrator says: It is early morning on sweat prairie. Im spotting movement close to the mirrors. Can it be? Oh my God, it is! Ive never seen this in my life! A male specimen so covered in overgrown muscles that he cant find normal-fitting clothes! You will also find really skinny babes who gym because I cant seem to get rid of my tummy. You what? I have to squint just to see you, you silly woman! Desperately sweating away on the treadmills and exercise bikes you will find suburban housewives or half-day professionals who try to squeeze in a healthy lifestyle between getting the house organised and picking up the kids from school. And then the Big Girl. The Big Girl will try the gym when there arent a lot of people at the gym, painfully avoiding the exercise apparatus close to the mirrors. We Big Girls carry with us a small towel and a water bottle filled to the brim with icy-cold water, which we sip from throughout our exercise torture. After a couple

of sessions skulking from one freakishly complicated machine to the next, this Big Girl decides that shell try walking every morning or after work. That resolution lasts for, oh I dont know, a day? After pondering the problem for some time, perhaps even while meditating with the help of a chocolate, the Big Girl might decide that the wisest and healthiest option will be to join a slimming club. These are the clubs that usually meet once a week at the nearest church hall. The Big Girl nervously enters the venue where she is faced by the worst of all bad experiences. The Used-To-Be-A-Big-GirlUntil-I-Discovered-This-Club-Which-Turned-Me-Into-An-Annoying-ChirpyChubby-Girl. Why do most women whove managed to lose some weight turn into these horrible giggling monsters? Hi! Im Veronica! (inane giggle) Welcome to the Slimming Club! (another inane giggle). Why?! Its not necessary to exclaim every single sentence. I can manage a whole conversation without one exclamation of wonderment. Give it a try, more people might like you. Anyway, once the greeting is over and done with, the weighing commences. This is the lovely part of the evening where you take off as much clothing as decency will allow, just for in case a light sweater will add 10kilos to your overall weight. You gently step onto the scale while Chubby Girl peers from her seat to make out the numbers on the scale as they whirl madly around and around to determine your weight. When you hear Chubby Girl sharply inhale, you try to peek at your weight, but because your boobs are in the way, you see nothing. Chubby Girls next move is to look intently at a chart before deciding what your target weight should be. Once she tells you, you do the mental arithmetic. At so many bucks per session and so many kilos lost per week, THIS BLOODY EXERCISE IS GOING TO COST ME THOUSANDS!

Once youve recovered from the shock (without the help of a choc, which etches the trauma deeper into your already-traumatised psyche), you decide to give it a whirl. You go shopping with your New! Healthy! shopping list, just to realise that buying healthy food is very detrimental to your wallet. But still, you stick it out and prepare tons of salad and boiled veggies for a couple of days. You dutifully weigh every singly piece of food before consuming it. You go through this tortuous ritual for a whole week, chasing images of proper food from your mind with the vision of yourself standing on the scale, beaming triumphantly at all the other victims of flab. Then, weighing time comes. You gently step onto the scale so as not to disturb the weight-loss fairies residing at the church hall. The Chubby Girl looks at the figures, looks at you and proudly announces: Well done! Youve lost 700 grams! Excuse me? After all the hell Ive put myself through this week? After all the healthy food I bought and so meticulously prepared? 700 grams? Impossible. You ask the Chubby Girl whether shes sure. She nods with a somewhat distressed grin on her face, clearly puzzled by the fact that you dont seem to be sharing her enthusiasm. Thats where this Big Girls adventure with the slimming club ended. Not to mention the fact that Chubby Girl and her assistant spoke about chocolate cake for the whole session, while all the food this Big Girl was allowed to eat for a week was green. Big Girls are tough. We can lose weight and be healthy in our own way and in our own time, without having some skinny wannabe giggle at us for an hour

every week. Now, Ill start right after finishing this piece of carrot cake. Its a vegetable, it cant be all that bad!

This Big Girl has actually joined a gym Yes, I know. I previously lamented the fact that gyms arent quite as wonderful for Big Girls as they might be for others. However, I managed to locate a family gym close to my home. Not one of those nationwide, as-featured-in-soapies types of gyms where herds of young, hip people gather. I found a small gym visited by families, middle-aged people, and bigger people. Im not even the biggest there! Joy! It was one afternoon while lolling aimlessly on my bed (and you wondered why I am unfit!) that I decided to phone this specific gym. As I am a sucker for a smooth-talking man, the gym-type person on the other end of the line convinced me that it would be better for me to drive to the gym to hear the price of membership than it would be for him to simply tell it to me over the phone. So into my bakkie I got. Once there, he invited me into a miniscule office. I assume in the gym business they call it power-pods or some other ridiculous label. I hunched into the chair, trying to make my substantial ass seem smaller. The questioning commenced. Why do you want to join a gym? What do you hope to achieve? Which areas would you like us to pay particular attention to? DUH! Look up from your list of questions and answer the questions yourself, young skinny man! Why are all gym employees so tiny? I was tempted to inform Stickman that I was there to build muscle as I felt my fat wasnt reaching its full potential, but decided it might make his head explode. Thus, I refrained from sarcastic comments, the weapon of choice for most Big Girls. Once we got past the annoying sales banter, he progressed to showing me the equipment. This included a detailed overview of every machine and the muscles targeted by the machine. I would have been able to figure that out myself, given the pictures pasted onto each contraption, along with instructions. Again, I held

back. Then we entered a room with specially designed, hydraulic contraptions. This, Stickman exclaimed with obvious pride, was their gyms coup de gras. These machines catered to everybody and every body. He even made me test out a few of these things, and feigning amazement, I complied dutifully. He hinted that these machines might be better suited to my figure as I might have a wee bit of trouble using the other machines. Obviously, this approach did not work on me, as Ive not used the fancy-assed things once. Mainly because there arent pictures, but whos asking? Anyway, I sat through his proclamations of gym greatness and agreed to pay him money every month for three years for the privilege of joining his gym. I even got a friend, whos also not tiny, to join with me. Ive been gyming dutifully ever since. I even enjoy it! We do something called The Circuit, in which you experience the pleasure of heaving weights with different parts of your body until you cant feel said parts anymore. Then you get to move on to the next machine, and the process repeats itself. You can also move to The Cardio Section, in which you get to cycle, run and eventually faint at your convenience. There is also a hall set aside for things like aerobics, spinning, stepping, yoga and the likes. I stay away from there, as I am not sure who will relocate my hips after those sessions. My personal favourite is The Squash Courts. An enclosed space in which you get to whack a ball as hard as you can without having to run lengthy distances to collect it once you miss the ball. You still run, but its short bursts and not long, death-defying distances. The only downside is the noise when my friend and I play. When we chase the ball on a wooden floor in an enclosed space, it reminds one of a herd of woolly mammoths on the stampede. Combine this with grunts and collisions with the walls, and the ice-age image is complete.

Still, I find it enjoyable. Exercise freaks who proclaim that they feel more energetic after expending all their energy in the gym, actually have a point. It does work, even if you show up at the gym with all the enthusiasm of an eightyear old with a cavity at the dentists. Once youre in the zone, surrounded by red-faced people sweating rather profusely, your mood lightens. And once your endorphins start flowing, it is worth every single ounce of effort. Even if I have to set an alarm to wake me up from my afternoon nap to be in time for gym

So, now were gyming for a bit They say the road to hell is paved with good intentions. That, I have learned during the past few months, is a truth, like the one that says if you neglect a giftplant for more than three weeks, it will die. Who knew? Anyway, back to the issue at hand. You were wondering how the gyming is going. To be frank, so am I. I havent been in a while, so occasionally I do wonder how all those poor bastards are doing. All kidding aside, its amazing how life can get in the way of ones good intentions. I mean, I really was trying my utmost to be a faithful gym-devotee, but so many excuses kept on popping up. A few times when we skipped gym our excuses were kosher. My friends dad passed away, I had extra classes and loads of exam marking with a deadline. But then, some excuses were utter codswallop. I fell asleep (said to my friend when she phoned me after waiting 15 minutes for me at the gym), I am grading papers (same scenario), I slipped and fell in the bath (true, but not as serious as it sounds), an audit by the boss (her excuse not mine), and our all-time favourite I am not in the mood. I suppose its human nature that has lead to this I-should-have-foreseen-it eventuality. Most humans are slightly deficient when it comes to persevering with something like gyming or dieting. I am not referring to those freakish exceptions who have to gym for six hours everyday to prevent Planet Muscular being taken over by shapeless blobs. Ive read somewhere that you have to persevere with a new activity for 12 weeks (I can be wrong here, it isnt as if Im researching the facts as I write! Feel free to Google it in your own time.) for said activity to become a habit. Thats a damn long time! And thats if memory serves me correct. It may be even more! Yikes! My mom has been dropping not-so-subtle hints that I should perhaps go to a bit more effort to get in some sort of shape. My reply that circular is a shape was

met with a BIG frown of disapproval. Here is her suggestion: exercise with your dog. You see, through some bizarre twist of fate and absolutely no fault of my own, my dog is overweight. I swear, it is not my fault. He bullies the other dogs away from their bowls and chows their food. He is also the most prolific and proficient beggar I have ever encountered. But back to my moms suggestion of exercising with the dog. On the face of it, it seems to be a sensible and manageable idea. My dog is really smart, he walks on a leash and I adore him to bits. Heres the thing though, she saw something on TV. Now she reckons that I will be able to do this with my dog. I hear you wondering, so here goes: Build an obstacle course. She actually wants me to construct a doggy obstacle course in our back yard. Apparently the purpose is to train the dog to jump over the obstacles by method of personal demonstration. Im supposed to trot lightly up to one of these obstacles, sail gracefully over said obstacle, land softly, and repeat the process. My doggy is then supposed to jog confidently to the selfsame obstacle, leap athletically over the obstacle, land purposefully and wait for me to repeat the whole exercise. Here is a dose of reality: I will lumber towards the first obstacle, recalling gingerly the fact that I have not experienced shin splits in nearly a decade and a half. I will then jump ungainly over the obstacle, boobs flailing wildly in several directions at once, land with a thud, twisting ankle ligaments that havent been in action since a drunken leapfrog contest at varsity. Panting furiously, scowling at the next obstacle, I will wait for my dog, who will have sauntered off to lick the area where his balls used to be whilst lying in the shade. If you can picture this image while holding a straight face, please contact me and we will build the obstacle course together.

Its not that I havent tried taking the pooch for walkies. Weve gone a few times, with limited success. The problem is that my dog is quite strong for a smaller breed. He also has a healthy amount of enthusiasm when faced with the prospect of leaving HIS KINGDOM, also known as our garden. Instead of explaining in words, I will sketch a mental image. Picture in your mind: a round, short black dog, straining against a leach, eyes bulging, emitting a wheezing cough of excitement and a slight choke, dragging behind him a Big Girl, gamely trying to break into a jog, fearing that the dog might choke himself to an untimely death. Picture this entourage moving from tree to tree, dodging traffic and stray dogs, and you might understand why our walkies have had only limited success. But I realise that I need to take action, both for my own health and my dogs. And in a few weeks time, we will. You see, its still winter outside, were scared of catching a cold, and besides, its very easy to pull a muscle in the cold. So for my own and my dogs health, we will wait patiently for warmer times. Watch us then

Meeting new people For many, meeting new people can be a tad nerve-wracking. For this Big Girl, it is even more so. You never know when you might figuratively stumble over some biased, prejudicial, two-faced, pro-skinny type, and then wish you could stumble literally over said person just to prove a point. I say this because there are some common, stereotypical misconceptions regarding Big People in general. Here are a few: Big People are big because they are lazy Big People eat the whole time, and junk food at that Big People are unintelligent, because smart people would never allow themselves to become so big Big People are chronically shy and introverted because they are chronically aware of their size. For some Big People, the above can be seen as fact, but for the majority of Us, these statements are pure rubbish. Many Big People are active, try as hard as the next person to engage in a healthy lifestyle, are intelligent, well-qualified professionals and are outgoing, fun-loving people who very seldom let their size inhibit or curb their everyday activities. So why can meeting new people turn into such an ordeal? Two words: THE LOOK. Come on Big Girls, you know the look Im talking about. Someone you know will say to someone you dont know: So-and-so, I want you to meet (Big Girl). So-and-sos eyes will swivel your way, and like magic, The Look will appear. A short silence will follow. In your minds eye, you can see what this person is thinking: Oh my God, she is BIG.

As if Ive never noticed. And then, the conversation. To all the prejudiced people out there, please. Big Girls are not necessarily stupid. Were almost exactly like blondes in that way. It is possible to converse with us without over-enunciating every word. Eventually, the Big Girl will manage to tear herself away from the daft person who is confusing the Big Girl with a hearing-disabled person. Now, it is time to mingle. The first step is to find a suitable space to mingle in. Its no use finding a size 10 space for a size 24 body. All that happens is that you end up standing just far enough out of the circle to feel uncomfortable. Why the hell dont people shift a bit to make the conversation easier for Us? Its impossible to have an intelligent conversation while standing on tippy-toes and craning your neck just to see the person youre talking to. I find that another problem I have as a Big Girl, is getting service in a store. Recently I went CD shopping. After farting about in the shop aimlessly for a while, I approached the Amazing-Body-Pierced-Bloke who pretends to work in the store. I enquired after a CD, to which he informed that: Like, no, we dont have it. Anymore. Fair enough. So I wondered politely whether Cant-ComeNear-A-Magnet Man can order it for me. Gazing vacantly at a point past my left shoulder, he informed me that: Like, no, we might be getting stock in the next couple of weeks. Joy. Moments later, two skinny young androgynous types entered the store. Im telling you, if Metal-In-Unmentionable-Places-Boy wasnt so covered in metal, he would have given Usain Bolt a run for his money in his efforts to reach the skinny ones. Hi! Like, what CD are you looking for? And in two seconds, they have been helped, they have paid and left, while I am still desperately looking for a CD. Again. I asked for a certain CD. Here is his complete answer: No. For fuck sakes. YOU WORK IN A DAMN STORE, YOU ASSWIPE! Why do skinny chicks get better service at many stores? My money looks the same as theirs!

Luckily, this Big Girl is blessed with friends who enjoy fragments from The Big Girls Lighter Side of Life. Its very much like a Monty Python sketch viewed on a big screen! Unfortunately, I havent been able to reach John Cleese to co-star, but well manage until then!

Big Girls and Forming New Relationships Relationship n (insert own phonetic pronunciation clue here) The grease that keeps the cogs of getting through life grinding away smoothly. (taken from the Dictionary of Me). In a rare moment of clarity and wisdom, I recently told my bestest-estest friend that we all need someone in life of whom we can say: I wish I could see myself through their eyes. In my not-so-humble opinion, this might apply to Big Girls more than to others. A brief interlude into sociology, psychology and any other -ology that you might care to mention. And I quote: Societal norms frown upon any deviation from what is viewed as the conventional. The idea of conventional is created by observing the whole of what is found in nature, and then deriving a median of measurement that can be said to be the standard. Whether this is applied to behaviour, thought processes or appearance, anything that is perceived as not conforming to the standard, will be viewed with suspicion and often, discomfort. (Author unknown I lie, I just made it up!) When you start writing, you can make up stuff too. But as I reread the above piece of intellectual achievement, I urge you to see the truth in it too. Deciding what is normal and not-so-normal has always been arbitrary. Decades ago, the norm for women was to have full, luscious figures. These women were immortalised in art and were gazed at rapturously. These days, the norm is to look like a telephone pole. These women are placed in magazines and on bill-boards and are gazed at rapturously. Who decided this? It is this change in what is considered to be the norm that has made it increasingly difficult for Big Girls to form new relationships. Humans are scared of things that dont conform, and being Big is a form of non-conformity.

This leads to situations where opinions are formed based on non-conformity in appearance, and by God, that makes life bloody complicated! Picture this: you are a person of average appearance. You are introduced to someone who is pierced and tattooed in every mentionable and unmentionable place. Your first thought is Oh my holy sack, its a freak! I am generalising here, but I am the one in front of the keyboard! You might be one of those people with a heart the size of a barge with space for one more at any given time, but you have an inkling of what I am on about. If not, pretend! But I digress The same scenario can apply to when you are faced from someone from a different culture or religion, or with someone who was recently released from prison, or a Big Girl for that matter. This tends to put a pothole in the road of forming new relationships. (Please take a moment here to refer back to the definition of relationships as helpfully supplied at the beginning of this rambling. It is important!) Before I carry on, let me state categorically that this difficulty does not apply to all relationships, but I will get to the point soon, I promise. Bear with me! I mentioned in an earlier piece that many people give Big Girls THE LOOK when first introduced, and that is not a good start to anything! You try bonding with someone who keeps eyeing you with an expression of dumbfounded amazement the whole time and see how far you get. Sometimes people will get over THE LOOK and enter into what is known as the lets-have-pity-on-her-relationship. This is where someone will have this very sincere internal dialogue: Gosh, I bet she really needs a friend. Luckily for her, I am a person of goodwill, empathy and open-mindedness. I know, I will be her friend and help her! (gush, gush gush!) This well-meaning (albeit lost) soul will then turn into the kind of friend who pretends not to notice that you are a Big Girl, and will pepper conversations with little bits of helpful advice: Those cookies look delicious! Did you remember to check out the fat content? Yes, yes I did

check out the fat content of your HEAD! Dont pity me, I am not a puppy that was struck by a car! Pity someone who needs it, like yourself Sorry about that. Then you will get people who will form relationships with Big Girls with one aim in mind Extreme Makeover. I am many things, but I am most definitely not someones project that they need to engage in to prove a point to the universe. Buy a house and renovate it, not me. I know I am Big, you know I am Big. Lets leave it at that, shall we? Dont try to change my wardrobe, I know what fits and feels good. Dont try to change my eating habits, I know its not always the best but at least I enjoy food. Dont try to force me into exercise, I get exercise when I want to and how I want to. Dont analyse my shopping basket when I go shopping, I work for my money and I use my money to pay for my treats. Also, when you study my shopping basket, I add candy just to annoy you. So there! The rarest relationship is the I-dont-care-what-you-look-like-I-like-who-you-are relationship (its a mouthful, but I am like a fly in a bakery on a roll.). This is the relationship that is formed when someone sees your heart and not your hulk. They see your energy and not your enormousness. They see your spirit and not your size. They see your you get the point, right? I can come up with hundreds of those, but I am running out of space. The point is, these people do not see a Big Girl, they see a Girl. And that is all a Big Girls wants! Someone who just looks without giving THE LOOK. Someone who says screw the norm, lets create our own! Someone who says bugger the diet, taste this cheesecake! Someone who will look at you and say you look so pretty! Someone who will say I wish you could see yourself through my eyes Ends on a wistful note Exit stage left. No, not THAT left, the other left.

The Traveling Big Girl This Big Girl is Going Places. Not metaphorically speaking, but actually going places. Going to places that have until recently seemed like but a dream. Oh the joy! The excitement! The prospect of seeing things! The cramped traveling space As ones monetary status changes, so does the method of transport. And let me tell you, not one of these methods have been designed with Big Girls in mind. Lets start at the first method of self-transportation the bicycle. If you should happen to look around at the general population, a definite trend emerges. People have TWO ass cheeks, not just one. A bicycle seat is a seat designed for one cheek only, and a narrow cheek at that. This Big Girl has two well-defined cheeks, and pedalling furiously with only half of your derriere supported by the seat can present some balancing issues. Then one gets older and progresses to every teenagers dream a scooter (I might be a bit out of touch here). Scooters are not very far off the ground to start with. Place a Big Girl on that sucker and look at the suspension and wheels sag pathetically to the ground. And then try to build up a speed that will ensure you dont get passed by every single geriatric out for a casual stroll. It simply will not realise, plus it will severely piss off all the motorists behind you who think that leaning on their horns will make your whimpering little machine go faster. Next step first car. Now, unless you are immensely fortunate, your first car will invariably be a vehicle of the smaller persuasion. Some of those cars have seats that, in severe cases, can allow a Big Girl to steer using her boobs only, which is quite handy (or booby!) if you are having a snack in the car. Being petrified of getting a traffic fine, the Big Girl will of course fasten her seatbelt. Come on, pull harder! I am sure you can drag it out a few centimeters more click UGH! Once that is taken care of, Big Girls often find that said seatbelt will want to

encircle her neck like a very expensive necklace. It simply will not stay across the bosom. Nope, it has to creep upward until the neck starts chafing uncomfortably, causing a repeated yank-that-sucker-back-down-across-the-boobs action. During this stage, travelling further distances may be required. If the small car cant make that journey a bus is the next best option. A certain bus company is named after a dog, and the seats have obviously been designed using that dogs measurements. No, it is not Great Dane Bus Company. This Big Girl has always had the luck to end up next to a traditionally-built Africa mama. Placing two Big Girls next to each other on a bus is a recipe for discomfort. The armrest between the seats becomes superfluous as it tends to be hard to find in these situations. Plus, that thing digs into your side like treasure is buried there. Moving around in the seat to alleviate pressure on all the sitting parts cant be done, because with a Big Girl, there IS no around in those seats. When you are sitting, trust me, you are seated! And then the person in front of you will discover the recline lever, and said person will then recline as far as possible, thus pinning the Big Girl in the position occupied at the moment of reclining. It does not help that you have a stranger lying with his head basically in your lap, but what can you do? After this, traveling with an airplane might be in a Big Girls plans. This is, to put it simply, a mission. Just getting on a plane and manoeuvring down the aisle with a handbag, a laptop and carry-on luggage is a challenge for all. The Big Girl not only has to manage these items, but she has to wangle her body through there as well without knocking the heads off the passengers who are already sitting. If someone is standing up in the aisle, stuffing things into the overhead bin, the Big Girl has to stop dead in her tracks. There is nowhere to go, and the Big Girl has to wait patiently for a gap to pass, all the while ignoring the very pointed coughs coming from the queue of people behind her. Once the ordeal of irreverently shoving luggage into the overhead is over, the Big Girl can sit. Ah but wait, to get to the window seat, the person sitting in the aisle

seat has to get up and move out of the way, leading to yet another Big-Girl inspired traffic jam. Now we sit. Wiggle to the left. Nope. Wiggle to the right. Nope. Shift your ass down on the seat a bit. Nope. No comfort there. Eventually a position is acquired in which as few as possible nerve endings are protesting. Nestle in and wait. The plane takes off. The Big Girls body is already protesting and only two minutes of a multi-hour flight have passed. Clever people say that, when traveling far distances on a plane, passengers have to get up and walk up and down the aisles to promote circulation, improve memory, reinforce balance and build space stations. Ooh, got a bit off track there Again, the person in the aisle seat has to get up and out of the way so that the Big Girl can set forth, down the aisle of perpetual narrowness. Hit a spot of turbulence and watch that Big Girl surprise an unsuspecting passenger with an impromptu lap dance! But wait, what is that sound coming from far away? Is it the gentle beat of an African drum? No, alas, it is not. It is nature, calling the Big Girl to the airplane loo. Yes. All two square feet of it. Creep in sideways, sit down gingerly, pee with elbows clutched to the sides, wipe through miracle of newlyacquired double-jointedness, flush, wipe sweat from brow and go back to seat. The person in the aisle seat you get it, right? The above procedure can be repeated many times during a long flight, depending on the amount of soda and peanuts consumed on the plane. See, traveling is not for wimps, regardless of whether you are a Big Girl, a Tiny Girl or an In-Between Girl. It takes some chutzpah for a Big Girl to do it with grace and poise and not look like someone who has only recently entered civilisation after years of living with squirrels in a forest. But damn it, we manage to do so time after time and we have the stamps in our passports to prove it!