I Can Run Slightly Faster Than A Fat Girl

An auto-biography of a guy you didn`t even know existed!

Prologue

    You know when you find something so sterling you have to leave? Yeah, this is one of those things.

    Now that some people have left (and spent a hefty 4.99 on this book) they've probably gone to return this book at their local bookstore if that still exists by time they get there. People on e-readers who have bought this off of an online store I apologize, but thanks for your hard earned money. I`m imagining the thoughts as I write this; "It`s either this book or a medium size pizza from Papa John`s." If you bought this book and not a pizza, my greatest condolences to your family. You should probably think about writing me an angry letter which I won`t read.

Let's get on with the story shall we? This book will be about my greatest challenges. Do this homework assignment? Or be destroyed by my mother?  Eat a third Hot Pocket and probably die or go to bed because it is four in the morning. There will be one challenge that is greater than all! Running faster than a fat girl (by the way if you haven't realized this book will be insulting to some people.) For you to get to know me a little better I will tell you a little about me.

My name is Dakota Wagner ( I checked public records, good luck finding me.) I weigh 220 pounds even though I'm probably being a bit generous about that. Let me go off on something real quick ( you have no choice, so sit and read.) I'm not a 100 percent fat type of guy (total liar.) I workout sometimes (barely.) I have a bigger frame than most people (no kidding.) I am also the youngest of four of which you will never know their names because I fear for their lives since writing this.

One last thing before I actually start this story. Names will changed since I will be poking fun at certain people I like and hate. Don't complain, just chuckle like an idiot in a public place while reading this.

Chapter 1

My Time Is What?!?

In seventh grade I was the fat girl (I will put in a picture next to the dork who wrote this). Granted I was only 180 pounds, but 180 pounds does not look good on someone who is five foot three. The girl part comes from the hair I had; I grew it past my shoulders mainly because of my brother. Thanks for the pain and suffering bro! Love you!

I should mention that at the time I had no significant jawline in any way. I looked like a very ugly version of Adele. This look (along with carrying a man purse for a backpack) was designed to be picked on by prepubescent boys. Most of the girls didn`t make fun of me I assume it was because they thought I was one of them (I had the biggest breasts) and made them feel pretty.

Now imagine this figure being the last one on the mile track and coming to the finish line while being heckled by classmates (and possibly having an asthma attack.) The strength it took me not to cry while finishing was astronomical. The embarrassment isn't over yet. Now you have to receive your time and give your time to a really physically fit guy. What was my time? Well it was school shattering record of 17 minutes and 53 seconds. The sad part was the fact that I was very content with this time and thought I was on par with with the guy who ran the bloody thing in six minutes.

Since that incident I have slowly progressed. Slowly, but I have progressed. I spent all year trying to get faster and I`ve gained a bit of speed. There`s only one way that I know of to throw away all that progression all at once. The holidays. Turkey, ham, and mashed potatoes. Do they not expect us to become lazy turds after? They force this stuff and it`s impossible not to gain pounds of fat in three weeks of doing nothing. I guess turkey and ham is too good to pass up on.

I'm sitting there in my chair thinking that I`ll die if I don`t stop eating a turkey leg and watching “The Walking Dead”. At one point I even had chest pains and was too lazy to get up. Thankfully it subsided and gave me more reason to eat the candy that was stuffed in my stocking.

Chapter 2

I Have Academics?

In my middle school we had four core classes: Math, History, English, and Science.

My history teacher was the absolute best. We would earn class points for being good students and once we earned enough we would walk down (worst part) to the plaza to where all the food was (best part.) I had no friends in that class (or anywhere else) so I would walk down in complete silence not talking to anybody. My goal was to get in, get my food, and not be made fun of.

The hardest was the last. It`s hard not to be made fun of when you look like fat ugly Adele and you order a 15 inch sub sandwich with a giant cup of frozen yogurt which is more candy than yogurt. People don't make fun of you directly, but in their minds they are. The looks they give you while you are stuffing your face, and you are smeared with frozen yogurt. “Does this girl ever leave the restaurant?” I casually reply, with Jersey Mikes in my mouth, “I`m a guy.” The look on their face is priceless! Until I finally realize that they are actually about to throw up because I rarely brushed my teeth or put on deodorant back then. I still won the confrontation.

I`m changing the rules for the rest of the book. I will only change names of people that I like. Everyone I hate fend for yourself and I hope you can`t sue me for this.

With this new rule applied I want to tell you a story about my seventh grade science teacher, Mrs. Robb. I first walked into her classroom with high hopes that she was nice. I was right for about 20 minutes. People didn`t stop talking no matter what she did, so she finally broke. “Would you shut the hell up?!?” She sounds nice when she talks normally but when she yells she sounds like the Exorcist. That was my moment of realization this women is crazy. Now a smart person would get that class changed, but I am not a smart person. So I stayed. Everyday I would hear what sounded like my teacher getting possessed while teaching us what a fallopian tube was.

My pre-algebra teacher (who we will call Mrs. Doow) was almost too easy. That right there is my explanation for me getting a “D” in that class. She was one of the teachers that everyone loved. She was nice, she would give out candy, and she would never yell. Now lucky me didn't get that luxury. The day I had her she would never be there (I think I scared her off.) She was always sick the day I had math, but never any other day.

So instead of this fantastic teacher I got a crabby 70 year old red head. She wouldn't do a damn thing. I would walk in and notice her (at this time I would've complained to a friend but they were non-existent at the time) and I would mutter under my breath what I thought was a swear word. Apparently “crup” doesn't count. All we would hear was “Do these problems and when you're done come up to me for some more.” Nobody went up. She would sit there at the computer and occasionally chuckle (I assume she found my class photo.)

In this math class were the kids from elementary school that made fun of me. You can only imagine the excitement I had. Within the first week of school I was crying. The culprit was none other than Kayla. It was a good day in math, Mrs. Doow was here and I just gained a friend which I would carry to high school. After this paradise ended I realized how terrible this class would be. Mrs. Doow split us up into groups to solve math equations that we placed around the room.

When you hear the words “We're working with partners today.” You automatically look at your friend and do the “what`s up?” head nod to show you're going to be partners. This happiness is automatically crushed by the following sentence “I`ll be picking your partners.”

I hear these words and know I am going to be paired with a kid who has made fun of me. Not only did this happen, I got partnered with four of them.

For the first five minutes I just kept my mouth shut. After I realized they weren't doing anything I decided to step in. What a terrible idea that was. I politely said “I think we should start working so we can get credit.” This was followed by nothing other than “Shut up fatty.” Now this isn't what made me cry. After I said “You are just making fun of me because you are insecure.” (Perfect logic right?) They said “ Why don't you go and cry to your mom you fat tub of lard?” For the record I didn't go crying to my mother. I went crying to Mrs. Doow. She told me to go talk to another teacher (ain't that just sweet?) So I did and the conversation ended with tears in my eyes and me talking about a rollercoaster.

Chapter 3

I Won`t Cut My Hair

“I won`t cut my hair!” Was a popular response when I had luscious locks. People would always ask “Why do you keep your hair like that? It makes you look like a girl.” I would respond along the lines of “No I don't!” or “It makes me unique.” (My mom told me that one.) I understand these people are curious. “Why does he have long hair?” “Why is she not wearing a bra?” “He should be wearing a bra.”

When the bell rang one day I walked in a hurry to my least favorite class. Industrial Crafts. Now you may be thinking wood work or welding. Nope. It was nothing but building legos. We would get these laptops (that would move about as fast as a piece of roadkill) and take them into a separate room where the legos were stored. This building was under tight security just in case a toddle broke in and took the plastic pieces that somehow end up being underneath my bare foot.

Anyways, on the way to class I walked past the eighth grade wall. I looked up the definition of wall and believe me it`s not even close to a wall. It`s more like a slab of concrete coming two feet out of the ground. What was so special about this “wall”? Nothing, except for the fact that eighth graders like to keep the scrubs off of it. (Yes, scrubs. Seventh graders were known as a piece of medical clothing.) I usually avoided this ‘wall’ but I was unable to today. So I walked past it (with my head looking at the ground of course) and accidentally bumped into an eighth grader. He said “Oh, sorry dude...or girl.” I kept walking. “Wait, are you a girl? I really want to know.” I was so upset at this that I walked into a pillar.

Chapter 4

Industrial Crafts

We've been through the annoying plastic pieces so i`ll straight into my pain and suffering.

Now this teacher named Mrs. Petrovich (who I was afraid would have a heart attack in the middle of class) wasn't exactly a mean teacher. She just wasn't pleasant to be around. She always sounded like she was angry and out of breath. I guess i'd be angry to if I blue feet. Not even kidding, she had blue feet. Now this some medical condition that i'm unaware of, but i`ll Google it after i`m done writing.

We would be greeted with vocal cords that sounded like someone sprayed them with Diet Coke. “Get your stuff we`re moving into the lego room. She would say with phlegm flying everywhere. We would collect our stuff and walk into the room with our dignity levels slowly dropping. When I had this class I wanted to be an engineer (I soon realized how much I hated math). So I would talk about a subject of which I knew nothing about. One of these times I was talking about a rollercoaster and it`s G forces and how they would push you in a certain way, but the guy didn't believe me so we bickered about it for awhile. Push came to shove and next thing you know I move to a separate table and start crying. We had a substitute this day so she wasn't much help. “Why don't you go have a friendly chat with him?” Yeah...no.

My insults weren't exactly the best in seventh grade so I would wonder why my insults didn't affect them. Now I realize I had a pretty short range of vocabulary. One of my favorite words was “basically” and if you put that 3 syllable word in front of a sentence it will doom you. People will assume you have no idea what you`re talking about.

Back to playing with legos. When you`re group picks a project to build someone will get the parts and build the parts. Guess who got to get the parts? The table where the pieces are located were only about a meter or meter and a half away. This is not a far distance (unless you have jello for calves), but anyone who has had to get up and down over and over you know how repetitive it gets. (It`s kind of like you just got comfy in bed and you're about to watch “The Walking Dead” and out of nowhere you hear your mother holler from downstairs “Take out the trash!”.) It instantly puts you in a bad mood. Not only was I normally in a bad mood in that class, my group noticed. They would start saying that I picked the wrong part or to go get another one. I could deal with this for a little bit, but after the 20th time I start thinking about which piece of plastic is soon going to be in their esophagus.

This threat was kind of meaningless since I had no muscle mass. (I struggled with a ten pound weight.) I would get a total of zero hits before I was on the ground. Mrs. Petrovich noticed how close we were to biting out each other`s jugulars so she laid out a challenge. Robot battles. This was the perfect time to show my skills of building legos. My design looked and worked like a snow plow. There was only one other design that had the possibility of destroying mine so I decided to sabotage. It consisted of taking a few vital parts and a wire or two. I did my sabotage with no one noticing. When our battle came his didn't function so I won by default. I won the championship and got nothing but the satisfaction of beating the bully. It may have been a small victory, but it was totally worth it.

Before I end this chapter I want to tell you of my first revenge of the boy who made fun of me in Industrial Crafts. On the way to class I walked over a patch of grass and found a cupcake in the dirt. My mind instantly thought of the bully and how he would eat it so I picked it up and took off some dirt and pieces of grass. ( I can imagine what people thought “Look that fat girl is going to eat a cupcake she found in the dirt. Get your camera.”) I walked into the class proudly holding my cupcake. I walked up to my bully and said “I don't want this cupcake would you like it?” I don't know how it worked but it did. He started chowing down on the cupcake and enjoyed it. He has yet to know that I found it in the dirt so I hope he doesn't read this book.

Author's Note

Give me your overall thoughts on this: Did I make you laugh? Did I make you cry?

Reviews

[Alene Parr]

Definitely got some great laughs out of this. Your writing style is fantastic. And it reminded me of all the awkwardness that exists in my life, so I'll say that tears maybe aren't that far away. But I want to read more!