Ever since I’ve been little I’ve wanted to be something big. When I was six, I truly believed, in my heart of hearts, that I was the fastest human alive, possibly the fastest thing ever created. I would create huge races in my backyard. Usually the distance was from one end of the yard to the other. I believed I was the fastest person ever because I almost always won these races. Oh, sure, every once in a while, an imaginary guy with rockets on his shoes would edge me out, but that was mostly in qualifying races, and it was only a device to add drama to the final showdown. I was a god when I was six. I was a god because I had no frame of reference.
When I started elementary school, we actually had races with other kids. It was then I realized I probably wasn’t the fastest human in the world anymore. I wasn’t even the fastest kid in my class. Mike Cohen could easily beat me in any race, and at any distance. I claimed he spiked his fruit cup with steroids, but the teacher wasn’t buying it.
Things went from bad to badder (I hadn’t learned comparitives yet) by Winter. It was December 8th, the day after my birthday. I was bloated on cake and soda, distracted by the new Transformers waiting for me at home. At recess Jeff Murray raced me and I lost. I lost. To Jeff Murray. The fat kid who lived behind the high school gym. My glory days were not only over, they’d been crumpled up and spit on like some sort of paper you wrap fish in. My glory days were spitty fishy papery mush.
In a sense.
So, what could I do? I accepted my fate as a has-been athlete. I was an old flabby seven-year-old who had obviously never had the will to train hard enough. I toured the celebrity circuit for a while, doing promotional gigs just to get by. It was humiliating but how else was I gonna keep my candy habit? I started hitting the fruit roll-ups hard. I wasn’t allowed to compete in a celebrity mini-golf tournament because the officials said I reeked of artificial grape flavoring. I got belligerent and took out a windmill.
By junior high I had started hitting the bottle pretty hard. Then the bottle broke and cut my hand. I went to a free clinic and got my hand stitched up, but I couldn’t afford a new bottle. So I started hitting a tupperware dish. It wasn’t the same.
Then, suddenly, on March 14th, 1991, I played Nintendo at a friend’s house, got really into video games, and forgot about the whole “fastest guy” thing. But I still wanted to be something big.
So I increased my calories and fat intake, cut down on aerobic exercise and strength training and tried to get really fat.
Only in America…