Fat Kid Series Part 3: The King And I

The summer after 7th grade I was in the prime of my childhood chunkies. The summer was the worst season for fat kids; coming up with different reasons for why you have to wear a shirt while swimming in the pool is an arduous task. "I don't want to get a sunburn." "It keeps me warm in the cold water." or my last resort, "It's fun to swim with a shirt on--you should try!" Any reason to not have to de-robe and show the world my 11 year old bitch tits and prominent stretch marks was good enough for me. It was a stress you should be grateful you didn't have to deal with (unless you did have to deal with that, in which case you know what I'm talking about)

This particular summer I was in a grand production of the Rogers and Hammerstein classic, "The King and I." For those who don't know, the story revolves around an English woman and the brutish King of a land known as Siam. I, in my 11 year old, awkwardly large body, portrayed the pivotal role of, "dancer."

The crux of the costumes for us dancers were these huge, M.C. Hammer style pants; super baggy and in the dark, rich colors of the orient. These pants and a matching vest, and that. was. it. Nothing more. No shirt to hide my lumpy torso.

Clearly when I learned of these costumes, I broke into a cold sweat--desperately trying to remain cool and unaffected while on the inside I scrambled for reasons we should wear shirts, "Isn't it cold in Siam?" "We're all really pale, so we wouldn't look Asian" and "Wouldn't it be fun to all wear shirts?"

Yeah, none of it worked. After weeks and weeks of sweaty dread, we finally had our first dress rehearsal. Everyone was excited, looking at each other in their awesome costumes. I undressed quickly and pulled my hammer pants up above my belly button, as to mask the bulge, and slipped on the vest very carefully , as to create minimal jiggling.

Everything was okay. I wasn't hanging out all over the place, it wasn't disasterous. Everything was fine---standing up.

The problem arose--or more aptly, plopped out--when I had to go through the blocking in costume. You see, much of the show was spent kneeling and bowing towards the king. Gravity, my friends, is not kind to fat kids with boobs wearing vests.

I quickly realized the problem I had and began to solve it by slowly and non-chalantly closing my vest flaps and keeping them pinned together using my chin as I cautiously went down to bow. I looked like a deformed seal--neck-less, blubbery, and wet with sweat. I don't know how I thought I wasn't drawing attention to myself. In fact, after a few dress rehearsals, I thought I was getting pretty damn smooth.

Well about a week before the show, one of the moms working on the costumes--Vicki Kangos--called me and said that she was working on the vests and needed me to drop by her house for a quick fitting. She lived in the same neighborhood as I, so this wasn't a problem. I hopped on my bike and pedaled my fat ass up to her house. She made me take off my shirt (which was embarrassing in and of itself) and put on my vest. She started fiddling with it, pulled out her measuring tape, looking things up and down and then added, "we're gonna put a button on your vest"

a button. a little black button to fasten the two sides of my vest closed so I wouldn't worry about my tits hitting the stage when I bowed down.

I was the sole dancer with a button.

And honestly, I don't know what was worse--fat flopping out or having a button call attention to the fact that I had fat about to flop out. So I went through the show, wearing my button, answering questions about the button with, "uh, I don't know, they said that this color vest needed a button..." It was tragic.

My favorite part was after one of the performances my dad came up to me, clearly not thrilled by the 3 hour, 300+ person production he just sat through and said, "Great job! You looked, really, uh, muscular up there!"

I smiled and said thanks.