by Tucker Max
At some point, I wake up about ten seconds away from puking violently. I try to spring out of bed, but the girl is sound asleep on top of me. Doesn’t matter, puke’s coming, so I just keep going and she gets flung out of the bed with me, crashing to the floor. I’m not sure about this, but I think I stepped on her chest in my scramble to get to the porcelain. At the very least, she grunted like I had.
Thankfully, it was a pretty short and sweet puke. It all came out in a few hurls and was done, and I got back to bed and passed out immediately. Thinking about it as I sit here writing this, I honestly think I just left the girl lying on the floor when I came back to my room and crawled into my bed. It would make sense—who thinks about that shit when they’re totally hammered and just puked up two gallons of alcohol and stomach acid?
All I wanted was to sleep for about three days, but of course, at 8am my phone rang several times.
“Mr. Max, this is Visa Fraud Protection, we’re calling about some suspicious activity on your card.”
When you wake up at 8am with your credit card company calling you because they think it’s impossible to drink as much as was charged to your card … you begin to understand what makes Halloween so awesome.
FAT GIRLS CROSS TUCKER, HILARITY ENSUES
Some people have a misconception that I hate fat girls. That’s just not true. I don’t care about fat people one way or the other. If someone wants to go through their life with Oreo crumb dandruff and TV remotes lodged in the rolls between their FUPA and their gunt, that’s their decision. So what if they’re unable to climb a flight of stairs without risking massive coronary failure? As long as I’m not on the same staircase and their behavior doesn’t affect me, how could I have any emotion about it, much less hate them for it? I can’t and I don’t.
What I DO hate are people whose annoying bullshit negatively impacts my life. You can be fat or skinny, tall or short, stupid or smart, man or woman—it doesn’t matter. But if you, by your actions towards me, make my life more aggravating or difficult, then you get a negative reaction from me. Two of my favorite examples:
THE FAT AND THE FURIOUS
Occurred, January 2010
I was in NYC for a weekend and went to dinner with a girl I’ve known for a long time, “Laura.” She’s a cool girl, the type who has tons of friends from all different social groups and loves mixing them. Sometimes it works great and people who’d otherwise never meet make new connections; other times, it explodes in her face, like a bukkake of anger and resentment. This was one of those.
The dinner itself was pretty basic, nothing memorable, until we were all finishing our entrees. Out of nowhere, this fat Asian girl—with a face so wide I thought she was Pokémon for a second—comes running up to the table screaming like Godzilla just stomped on her village. Apparently she knew one of the people at the table and got excited by the serendipity. Then, like she owned the fucking restaurant, took a chair from another table and wedged herself into ours. And I literally mean wedged: if the fit had been any tighter, she’d have squished her slanty eyes round. I lean in to the guy next to me (who was cool):
Tucker “Who the fuck is this fatty?”
Guy “No idea. I wouldn’t call her fat though. I think ‘bovine’ is a better description.”
Not content with just being fat and pushy, she was also talking at the most obnoxious volume possible to her friend, like there wasn’t anyone else at the table. A waiter walked by—not our waiter, just a random waiter—and she SNAPPED HER FINGERS AT HIM to get his attention and give him a drink order.
I don’t know about you, but I’ve had a lot of shitty jobs in my life, and many of them have been in the food service industry. Very little pisses me off like someone being a bitch to a waiter. Especially a fat bitch. Again, to the guy next to me:
Tucker “What the fuck is going on? Is this a joke? Seriously, maybe a high maintenance hot girl is tolerable, but what purpose does a high maintenance fat girl serve? She’s like a human speed bump.”
Guy “No … speed bumps serve a purpose.”
Then she does something I’ve never seen before in my life: She reaches over to another girl’s plate, picks up a carrot, and starts eating it. Not the girl she knew, mind you—the girl on the other side of her.
FatBitch “Are you going to finish that?” (she asks this as she chomps the food in her fat fucking mouth)
Random “Uh … well … uh … no, I guess not.”
FatBitch “Cool, thanks.”
But once wasn’t enough—she started doing it to everybody else’s plates! Examining them like some kind of leftovers buffet, then reaching over, picking things up off them, and eating them.
I am totally serious. Granted, these were the dinner scraps left on people’s plates after they had finished, but still—she was eating table scraps. It was surreal. She was eating parsley, zucchini rinds, everything. I couldn’t believe it.
Our waiter came back to the table with her fruity drink, just in time to see her reach across the table, grab a carrot off someone’s plate and pop it in her mouth. His eyes got wide with shock, and he looked at the rest of the table, wondering—like all of us—what the fuck was going on. We had no answers for him.
Humans don’t do this. DOGS DON’T EVEN DO THIS! You know who does this? Stockyard hogs. Fine, bitch. You wanna act like a pig, I’m gonna take you to slaughter:
Tucker “What are you doing?”
FatBitch “What?”
Tucker “That’s what I’m asking you—what THE FUCK are you doing?”
FatBitch “I’m sitting here talking to my friend.”
Tucker “Is this like a joke or something? This has to be a set-up. You’re eating food off of other peoples plates!”
FatBitch [getting annoyed] “So?”
Tucker “So you think it’s cool to be an annoying cunt and then SCAVENGE SCRAPS LIKE A FUCKING ANIMAL!!”
She gets visibly red, and spews her retort across the table, sending food shrapnel everywhere:
FatBitch “Fuck off!”
Laura was giving me desperate, pleading eyes. But it was too late for that. I’d gone into a full-on berserker’s rage:
Tucker “Why are you rooting around in our leftovers like a fat cow? Is it that hard to fill your four stomachs? Or is that just how they roll in the barnyard you were fattened up in?”
FatBitch “I’m not fat!”
Tucker “Are you kidding? Your back fat could have its own bra! Look at yourself—you look like a Hefty bag filled with vegetable soup!”
That last comment got repressed snickers from the dude next to me and Laura. FatBitch can’t really even respond, she’s so flustered at this point, so she just stammers at me for a second.
Tucker “Sorry you’ll have to repeat that, all I heard was, ‘MOOOOOOOOOO.’”
Her friend decides to chime in.
FatFriend “That’s not funny! I hate assholes like you, with your degrading bullshit about fitting into societal standards!”
Tucker “Fit into societal standards?? I bet she couldn’t even fit onto a veterinarian scale.”
This enrages her, and she heaves her massive torso up, presumably so her internal organs aren’t crushed by her back breasts, and yells:
FatBitch “You can’t say that to me! I’m a person!”
Tucker “Do you know your eyes disappear when you get angry?”
FatBitch “That’s because I’m Asian!”
Of course she didn’t mean for that to be funny, but I absolutely lost it. The magnitude and timing of that bit of unintentional comedy was so fucking perfect, I almost puked from laughing.
This was too much for FatBitch. She picked up a piece of bread—the only thing left at the table she hadn’t stuffed into her fat face—and threw it at me. SHE THREW BREAD AT ME. I’d fucked her up so badly, she could no longer speak, and had to resort to physical violence. It hit my water glass, but didn’t even knock it over.
Tucker “With arms that size, you should throw a
lot harder.”
She screamed at the top of her lungs:
FatBitch “FUCK YOU, ASSHOLE!”
The whole restaurant stopped and stared at us. She stormed off, her friend leaving with her. Unwilling to give her the last word, I yelled the first thing that came to my mind:
Tucker “All right, all right—you can have the last ice cream sandwich!”
TRUE FRIENDSHIP
Occurred, September 2007
One night in Chicago, I was out with a friend of mine. This girl he was really into, but hadn’t yet sealed the deal with, was coming out to meet us, and she was bringing her roommate. He asked me to play wingman for him, and I’d agreed because I owed him a big favor.
Friend “I need you to distract her enough that I can separate them. Can you do that for me?”
Tucker “Come on dude. Who are you talking to?”
Friend “It’s not quite that simple. The roommate is super clingy with my girl, and really insecure. You might have to hook up with her, or at least pretend to want to, to get them separated.”
Tucker “You’re saying this like it’s a problem.”
Friend “I have to warn you … she’s, uh … not skinny. She’s got a really cute face, and she’s a cool girl. And I’ll pay your bar tab.”
Tucker “You’ll pay my tab? Exactly how fat is she?”
Friend “Well … she’s from Milwaukee. And she went to Wisconsin for undergrad. And she’s lived in Chicago for three years now.”
Tucker “You’d better be kidding.”
Almost at that exact moment, they walk in together. His girl is good looking, with a great body. The girl I am supposed to run interference on could be the picture next to the definition of “Chicago Girl.” Really cute face, upper body a bit thick but with the sweater she has on, it’s passable, but her ass … oh my. From the waist down, you’d think she was a starting guard on the Bears. Her legs were basically just telephone poles. No ankles, no knees, just a hinged log of fat.
Tucker “I hate your fucking guts.”
Friend “YOU OWE ME! YOU HAVE TO STAY! I’M PAYING YOUR TAB!”
Tucker “You’d better have a high limit on that card. I’m going to drink myself into a coma.”
Like I said, I’m not always mean to fat girls. It’s more about reacting to how someone is as a person, not just blindly attacking someone based on some physical attribute. The nice ones get normal treatment, the bitches get thrown in the trunk. And though I had to at least be nice enough to this girl to occupy her attention for the night, she actually turned out to be a cool person. Terribly insecure and a bit dumb, but fun and nice, so I was able to at least have a conversation with her. And she was a drinker, so we both got fucking plowed, which helped.
As we got drunker, she mistook my persistent and engaged conversation for attraction. Like most insecure girls, because she thought I was into her, that made her more into me. And she LOVED my sarcastic, asshole sense of humor, which of course, was like catnip to me. Without an audience, I can be pretty average, but put me in front of a bar and someone who thinks I’m funny and gives positive feedback, and I’ll dance like a minstrel.
I was making all sorts of jokes about all the various people in the bar, constantly cracking her up and enjoying her as my audience. I started in on this other fat girl who was chowing on a plate of nachos. I was dropping pretty basic fat girl jokes, shit like, “I wonder if she’s going to unhinge her jaw when the entree comes,” or, “That girl looks like the monsters you have to fight in HALO.” She feigned dismay as she laughed:
Fatty “You’re so mean!”
Tucker “Not mean, just honest.”
Fatty “You should be nicer!”
Tucker “Whatever, fatties don’t have feelings. They’re not like real people.”
Fatty “Yes they do! Do you think I’m fat?”
Tucker “Do you think you’re fat?”
Fatty “I mean, I know I need to lose some weight. But I’m not fat. I don’t think I’m like her … am I?” [pointing to the cow with the nacho plate]
Tucker “No, you are not as fat as her.”
She got a look of happiness and contentment.
Tucker “Hold on—because you’re not the fattest girl in the bar, you’re OK with how fat you are? That sounds like Fatty Logic to me.”
Fatty “No it’s not! I’m not fat … am I? I’m not!”
Tucker “I don’t know … here’s one indicator: When you fly Southwest, how many seats do you have to buy?”
Fatty “SHUT UP! ONLY ONE!”
Tucker “OK, so you aren’t morbidly obese. That’s good. I guess.”
We talked about her weight for a while, and though it was obvious she knew she was overweight, she kept trying to avoid facing the issue by re-directing the conversation to non-sequiturs.
Fatty “Well, what about who I am, like, as a person? Doesn’t that count at all?”
Tucker “Of course it does. It’s very important. In fact, I’m sure you have a lot of inner beauty … it’s just hard to see under lots of blubber.”
Fatty “I don’t have blubber! I’m in shape!”
Tucker “Well … round is a shape … but it’s not a GOOD shape for a woman.”
Fatty “I’m not round! I go to the gym every day!”
Tucker “Do you do anything there?”
Fatty “YES!”
This morphed into a conversation about weight, BMI, societal perceptions of women, female body issues, etc., etc. I kept playfully teasing her, she kept taking the bait, and then we moved into the issue of guys, and how they interact with her.
Fatty “I don’t understand, lots of guys will fuck me, but they never want to like, hang out with me at bars and take me out and stuff.”
Tucker “They probably can’t afford to take you to a meal.”
Fatty “Shut up! I don’t eat that much! Seriously though, why don’t more guys want to take me out? I’m a nice girl. I’m fun.”
Tucker “You’re kidding right?”
Fatty “No. You don’t think I’m fun?”
Tucker “That has nothing to do with it. Have you ever heard the saying ‘Mopeds are like fat girls; they’re both fun to ride until your friends see you’?”
Fatty “That’s terrible!”
Tucker “It’s also true. I can’t be the first person who’s told you this.”
Fatty “I’m not fat! I maybe need to lose a few pounds … Seriously, you don’t think I’m FAT do you? I’m only like … 165 pounds!”
This girl was fun and sweet and nice, and I really did like her as a person. But she was still a delusional fatty, and she was still engaging in some of the most desperate, validation-seeking behavior I’ve seen in a person. She knew she was fat, she knew I knew she knew she was fat. She just wanted to hear the opposite from me so she wouldn’t have to feel bad in the morning about housing two Char dogs with everything and an 18-pack of Miller Lite the night before. This left me really with only one choice: playfully ignore the intent of all her questions and then openly fuck with her until she cracked.
Tucker “Just because it says ‘165 lbs,’ on your driver’s license does not make it true. I am 185, and I’d bet the bar tab that you’re within 10 pounds of me. You’re 165 if your thighs are hollow.”
Fatty “I’ll get on a scale right now!”
Tucker “Even if you are, you’re like 5’6”. I guarantee your BMI is past the ‘Obese’, and has moved into the ‘Can Only Leave The House With A Crane’.”
Fatty “I’m not 5’6”, I’m 5’9”! And just because I’m a little overweight doesn’t mean I’m fat!”
Tucker “AHHAHHAHAHAHAHAA! A ‘little’ overweight? I’m not blond, my hair is just yellow! I’m not a drinker, I just pound alcohol! Do words have meaning to you??”
Fatty “I’m not that fat!”
Tucker “I’ll say this: I’ve played sports my whole life, I’m still in great shape, but if we were fucking, I wouldn’t let you get on top becaus
e I’d fear for my internal organs.”
That pretty much crushed her. She almost started crying. I had to quickly backpedal, because even though my buddy was close to closing his deal, he is a slow closer, and it looked like we were all going back to their place. I wasn’t about to put all this grenade work in, only to lose it at the last minute and have the thing explode all over me, like some fucking amateur.
I tell her I was joking (I was, but only a little), and we get back on good footing. We all go back to their place, get some beers—I make sure it’s light beer, because I’m trying to help here—and talk about other things. As soon as my friend and his girl go into their room, she brings the conversation back to her weight. She even goes so far as to ask me for diet advice.
Tucker “You can’t go on a diet. Diets don’t work. You have to change your lifestyle. But staying a healthy weight is not hard, you just have to make your health the starting point of eating decisions, and eat the types of things humans are meant to eat, and avoid the things we aren’t.”
Fatty “OK, like what?”
Tucker “Well, let’s start with the easiest. You know what processed sugar is, things like high fructose corn syrup?”
Fatty “Yes.”
