Pearl's Curse

A lot of fat people don't know why, specifically, they are fat.  Oh yes, they can say with some authority that it is because they eat too much cheese, or they last exercised during some tenseness over Y2K, but they can't say for CERTAIN that they know why they have grown to maximum density.

Unlike those poor sods, I can say with some alacrity that I have more than a good hunch as to why I have packed on so many pounds that I once again shop in the Micheline Tire Person department at WalMart. There is definitely some cheese and lack of exercise involved, but really for this fat girl it is all due to my cousin, Pearl.

No, seriously.  I have it all figured out. This hideous slide into fatdom is a direct result of a family curse placed upon me by a jealous relative.  That kind of curse, is of course, both the most powerful and most permanent you can cast. Without doubt, I have Pearl to blame.

I remember the moment so clearly...my sister Judith had died quite suddenly and without warning, of a cardiac arrest in January of 2007. My remaining siblings and I traveled north to Bremerton, Washington to clean out her apartment, close her dealings with this world, to have her memorial service, and to bury her in a country cemetary one snowy day. It was during the winter of thinness, the only time in my life when I could wear a size 10 and actually liked being photographed.

After the memorial service, we all gathered for a family dinner at the bed and breakfast belonging to our cousin Ellen.  Pearl, who is my um...second cousin, by virtue of being my great aunt's daughter, yelled out to her husband, "Hurry up Clank! Take a picture of Anne-Elizabeth...while she's STILL THIN!" I turned toward the sound of her voice, and I SWEAR TO GOD my thighs grew bigger by two inches that very moment. I didn't eat a single huckleberry crepe that trip, but Pearl's curse caused an immediate, and continuing weight gain that is still evident on my person. Bitch.

I would gladly stuff Pearl's mouth full of brie and duct tape it shut in hopes of suffocating her if I could bring myself to go north again. And really? Clank?  Who has a husband named Clank? Pearl's prediction that I would gain back all my weight within a year hung over me like some mythical sword - waiting to drop fat from the heavens the moment I let my guard down and mistook a pound of sirloin for a veggie burger.

So now, I have to take all this off again. I plan to use Pearl for that too. They say living well is the best revenge. Perhaps, but walking into the the next family reunion a size 10, and then stuffing her face with brie wouldn't feel too badly either.