My Fat Mouth

Quick Update:  I forgot to tell you, I did another post at The Greenists.


Christmas came early to Casa de Dingo in the form of a 246-page glossy magazine.  Although I try to camouflage my fashionista aspirations beneath sweatshirts, tattered jeans, and slept-in pony-tails to avoid the ravenous paparazzi waiting to plaster my face across the latest copy of Useless and Oh no, not her again magazines, I cannot deny my love for Vogue, Marie Claire, Elle, and InStyle.  I consume them from cover to cover, ripping out the perfume inserts and rubbing them all over my body like poor woman’s Febreeze.  Except for the Prada Milano perfume insert.  It makes you smell less like Febreeze and more like the sticky stained carpet in a whore house.

It was with glee that I flipped through the pages of the November Glamour because it was the issue that promised to feature “plus-size” models — by plus size, they meant anyone who can wear corduroy without looking like a pipe cleaner.  What a disappointment!  Only two of the gorgeous plus-sized models were modeling clothes and even then, they had their arms crossed protectively in front of their bodies as if to shield readers from the sight of their unemaciated flesh:  Oh noes!  A Size-12!  Won’t someone think of the children?!1! 

I flipped through page after page of waifs, sticks, and cadavers balancing lollipop heads on necks so skinny they’d fail inspection at the broom factory.  I finally found models larger than the rolled Benjamins Kate Moss uses to snort her coke.  The luscious ladies were lumped together — literally, lumped together like tumors — in a two page spread waaaaaaay at the back of the magazine.  Fuck you Glamour.  Fuck.  You.  Nobody puts baby in — oh, wait, nevermind, Johnny Castle has left the building.

As fate would have it, last week my students were working on their research papers about advertising and media.  One of my students, a café au lait complexioned beauty with a honeyed patois that conjures images of Coronas, beaches, and “Don’t Worry, Be Happy,” was struggling with her paper about the negative impact fashion magazines have on the female psyche. I don’t play favorites, Innernetz.  I really don’t.  I just like some students more than others.  Caribbean Queen just happens to be one of those students who could write her research paper on the back of a matchbook and light it on fire as she is handing it to me, and she would still get an A.  So, when I saw her chewing the end of her pen, I made my way to her desk.

“Stuck?” I asked.

Caribbean Queen sighed deeply and pulled a copy of Vogue from her backpack.  She slapped it onto her desk in disgust.  “I’m not in there.  I’m never in there!” she said.  I looked at this smart, funny, beautiful girl and felt her dismay.  She could forget about ever finding her Rubenesque body-type modeling an off the shoulder, cinched-waist, bracelet-sleeved, metallic pleated skirt, rock, paper, scissors, mini-shift in the pages of any fashion magazine.  The Glamour debacle, fresh as a newly erupted cold sore, propelled me to action.  Oh hellz no!  It was not going to go down like this.  I was not going to allow her to even begin to disparage herself.  I was going to change her life.  Change. Her. Life! 

I grabbed the pen from her hand and began to write.  Sparks erupted and the smoke that rose from her wide-ruled college pages was heady incense.  I gave her the names of web sites like Shapely Prose, Big Fat Blog, and Fatshionista.  I told her she is beautiful just as she is blah, blah, blah, don’t try to conform to arbitrary standards of beauty, yadda, yadda, yadda, Madison Avenue’s boy-like model of feminine beauty is more a statement about pederasty than pretty, nod, wink, nod.

I set the pen down only when the plastic casing started to melt.  She looked at me with awe and adoration.  I was humbled, Innernetz.  Humbled.  She was silent for a moment. Suddenly, tears squeezed from the corners of her eyes and ran down her cheeks.  A simple “Thank you” would have sufficed. And some fresh brownies at Christmas.  And maybe a Moleskine notebook for Teacher Appreciation Day, engraved with “Best Teacher Ever!” But that’s it!  Anything more and I’d have to report it as income.

I looked into her watery eyes and mine grew watery, too.  My lips were pursed into a tight but quivering smile.  A hug was about to happen and my hands were already flapping a little.  She, meanwhile, was speechless. 

“Ms. Dingo, I didn’t . . . I mean . . .”

I managed to gasp, “Yes?”

“I want to see someone in the magazines who looks like me!”

“Exactly!” I said, and reached for that hug. 

“No!” she wailed.  “I didn’t mean fat!  I meant Black! Do you think I’m fat?”

“No! Nononononononononononono!” I spit out as fast as I could.  But it was too late.  The fat was out of the bag, spread all in her notebook.  Add some flour to her notebook, pop it in the oven, and you have a pie crust.  Add some baking soda and milk: biscuits.  Delicious biscuits.

By this time, the rest of the class had turned their attention to us, wondering why Caribbean Queen was crying and why I was backpedaling so fast I knocked yesterday onto its ass.  Fortunately, there was only fifteen minutes of class left and I decided to let them out early.  Trying to recover my composure, I walked to the front of the class and announced, “Remember, your papers are due on Friday.  And please, please, PLEASE!, remember to fat chick.  Fact check!  I meant fact check!”

Ah yes, Innernetz, life is all about Teachable Moments.  That day, however, I was the one who got schooled.

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