by Shane Dawson
Love Interest: I don’t think he’s going to. He seems sweet.
BFF: So do the Japanese. Tell that to my nipple.
I was PISSED. How could this random actress who had never even spoken to me assume that I was some kind of pervert who was trying to fuck my costar? If anything I just wanted to do my job as quickly as possible and go home so I could finish my binge session of some terrible reality show about a family who has a worse life than me.
So as we got ready to do the scene I noticed the crazy actress standing next to the camera, staring at my love interest with “DON’T WORRY I’M RIGHT HERE” eyes. I felt like I was about to make out with a girl while her overprotective mom watched. It was incredibly creepy, and because of my mommy issues, slightly a turn-on. ACTION. We went in for the kiss, and to say it was the worst kiss I’ve ever had would be an understatement. I’ve had better kisses from my gay uncle, and he likes to use tongue. CUT! The director pulled us aside.
Director: That was great! Let’s do it one more time but this time less like Amish kids experimenting with their siblings.
So we tried again and it somehow got worse. We did it about five times and then the director took us aside again. As we walked away I looked over at the crazy actress, and she was giving my love interest a thumbs-up. A THUMBS-UP? For what? For the most incestuous love scene ever put on film legally?
Director: This isn’t working. The kiss is giving me goose bumps. And not in a good way. In an “I just found out my dad likes butt play” way.
Love Interest: Why are you looking at me?
Director: I’m not. I’m looking at both of you.
Love Interest: No you aren’t. Just me.
Director: Ok, it’s looking a little forced on your end. Is everything ok?
Me: Am I doing something to make you uncomfortable? I swear I don’t have a boner. This is just how my pants look when I sit.
Love Interest: No, it’s fine. Let’s do it again.
She walked back to the bed and I stayed around to talk to the director more.
Me: I think the other actress is getting in her head. She told her I would flick her clitoris or something.
Director: What?
Me: I don’t know, some Chinese guy in some movie stuck his finger in her butt or something. I don’t remember specifics.
Director: Well just try to make her comfortable. Be charming! Be you!
Me: Have you met me?
So I walked back over and sat on the bed next to my terrified lover.
Me: So . . . see any movies lately?
Love Interest: No. You?
Me: I watched a documentary last night about these kids who killed their parents and then had sex in their beds.
Smooth. The director called action one last time and we went for it. It was SLIGHTLY better but still felt like I was forcing my comatose sister to make out with me. Then the crazy actress screamed out . . .
BFF: OK! You guys got it!
She grabbed my love interest and took her off set.
Me: Dude. What the fuck was that?
Director: The best we’re going to get.
Me: No, I’m talking about the insane actress with the crazy-people eyes and Adderall breath.
Director: You forgot all the IMDb credits.
Me: Fucking IMDb.
After that I went home and thought about how horrible the kiss was. I couldn’t stop thinking about it. A few weeks later I got to see my love interest at an ADR session. “ADR” stands for “automated dialogue replacement,” which is used when you have to record your voice and add it to the movie. Usually because the microphone wasn’t working on set. We talked about the awkward kissing situation and she told me about how nervous she had been to kiss on camera. It was her first time, so I totally understood where she was coming from. She also said it didn’t help that the crazy actress girl was trying to act like a big sister and keep her safe from all the big mean rapist actors on set. I’m not sure what gave that girl the impression that I was a rapey perv, but honestly, I was just happy she didn’t assume I was gay like every other stranger I meet daily.
The coolest part about the whole experience is that one day when I have my own kid I can show them their first scary movie ever and it will be one that their daddy was in. I’ll just skip the make-out scene. I don’t want them to think that’s what kissing looks like. I’ll just show them some porn for that.
THE MEAN GIRL GOT FAT
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Arturo André Jiménez is a teenager with a quiet and warm spirit. He has loved drawing since he was in kindergarten. Being born near the border of the United States and Mexico has given him a unique perspective, and he looks forward to making his own path in life. He has received several honors and is currently working on a drawing for his local hospital. You can find some of his work on his Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/AAJMART.
You know when you’re watching a terrible sitcom and something completely unrealistic happens to the main character and you are forced to suspend all disbelief until the show is over? Actually, that’s every sitcom episode ever made. One day I lived out one of my childhood fantasies and got to be the lead character in the shittiest sitcom ever created: my life.
It started as a pretty typical day. I got up two hours early to straighten my embarrassingly long hair. I needed it to look extra stylish in preparation for my new position. I worked at a weight-loss center, and I had been promoted from a counselor to a salesperson. The difference was that when you were a counselor you would weigh the client and offer a little bit of wisdom. When you were a salesperson you would introduce them to the program and beg them to give you their money and then hand them off to someone else to deal with. It may sound like salesperson would have been an uncomfortable job, but being a counselor was way more uncomfortable, considering most clients liked to take off all their clothes at the scale and give you a big, naked hug if they’d lost a pound. Knowing that today I wasn’t going to have to hug another naked, frizzy-haired soccer mom while some Kenny G song played on the lobby sound system made my life feel so much more worth living. I finished my hair, got into my tiny car, and practiced my sales pitch while driving to work.
As I walked into the center I was assaulted by my coworker Mag. She threw me into her office and locked the door.
Me: Mag, what’s going on?!
Mag: Nothin’. Want a donut? They’re filled.
Me: You dragged me in here for a donut?
Mag: No. I dragged you in here for a FILLED donut.
This wasn’t odd behavior for Mag. She was a loud, outrageous, hilariously outspoken old Jew with a thick New Jersey accent and enough perfume to cover up the scent of a dead body rotting in her basement. Which, by the way, is the reason she gave me for why she wore so much perfume. She was also a cancer survivor and would tell you so every chance she got. Sometimes when a client would complain about gaining a pound she would tell them, “At least you have both your breasts. I have to draw on my second nipple with an eyebrow pencil.” She really knew how to give her clients some perspective.
Me: No thanks. I gave up donuts a while ago.
Mag: Come on! Live a little! You know what happens when guys cut out sugar?
Me: They lose weight?
Mag: Ya, and they murder their wives and children. I heard about it on Dr. Oz.
Me: Well I’m not married and I have no kids, so I’ll take my chances.
Mag: So, you nervous about your first day as a salesman? Listen, if they don’t give you their money, take down their information and steal their identity. There’s nothing like taking a “me” day at the spa and pretending to be some bitch you hate.
Me: You do that?
Mag: You a cop? Why are you asking so many questions?
Me: I just don’t want to mess up. This is a big deal, ya know?
Mag: Honey, if you mess up you can just dust yourself off and try again. It’s like I tell my clients: if you gained weight this week just go home, have yourself a good cry and a donut, and start over tomorrow.
Me: You tell your clients to eat donuts?
Mag: Of course! Your body needs sugar! It’s like air but FILLED!
Me: How many of your clients have actually lost all their weight?
Mag: Um . . . none. Donut?
Mag wasn’t the best counselor—hell, she was the worst—but she made up for it with her spirit. She probably should have been fired for not getting her clients to lose weight but they loved coming in to see her so much that it didn’t really matter. It was a business, after all, and the bosses didn’t really care about weight loss. They just wanted customers to keep coming back. So I walked out of Mag’s office and into the lobby, where I saw an overweight young woman sitting nervously reading a magazine. I hadn’t seen her before so I knew she was a new customer. The first thing I had been trained to do when a new customer came in was to greet them and hand them a health sheet to fill out. So I grabbed one, took a deep breath, and walked up to my first potential sale.
Me: Hi there. My name is Shane. What’s your name?
Girl: Lacy.
As she took the health sheet out of my hand we locked eyes. I turned white as a ghost. I knew Lacy. I instantly had a flashback to two years prior when I was sitting in my high school biology class passing back a stack of tests to the girl behind me. It was Lacy. She was thin, beautiful, and everything that terrified me about women. She was a cheerleader with a 4.0 grade point average and more sexual experience then the sex ed teacher. One time she corrected him because he said the vagina only had three inches of feeling and she had proof it was nine. She was a mean girl in every sense of the word. Every day she would ask me questions about my outfit or my appearance. Not because she was curious, but because she was trying to make her horrible friends laugh. Here’s a sample conversation from 2006:
Lacy: Where did you get that shirt? It’s SUPER sexy.
Me: Um . . . Walmart I think.
Lacy: WOW. Really? I never would have guessed that! I love the way it highlights your back muscles. How often do you go to the gym to get back muscles like that? You must have a six-pack back there.
I didn’t have back muscles. The bitch was referring to the rolls of fat that were squished underneath my shirt between my shoulder blades and my ass. She was a soulless demon monster and she was now sitting before me, three hundred pounds, and potentially my first sale.
Me: Fill this out. I’ll be right back!
I casually ran to my office and slammed the door. I started hyperventilating into a brown lunch bag like a cartoon character having a panic attack. Mag walked into the room and tried to calm me down.
Mag: What’s going on? Here! Have some casserole.
I was too panicked to ask how she had managed to procure a vat of piping-hot casserole with no oven in sight, only a disgusting, decades-old microwave stuck in a dusty corner of the employees’ break room. All I could think about was how my ex–high school enemy was sitting one hundred feet away from me.
Me: That girl out there—
Mag: Oh ya, saw her at the donut shop earlier. Bitch took all the jellies.
Me: She’s . . . she’s . . .
Mag: Spit it out! I got shit to do! Oprah’s on in five minutes and she’s interviewing a woman whose face was ripped off by an ape! I only have four minutes and fifty-nine seconds to finish my casserole.
Me: That girl made my life hell in high school.
Mag: What did she do? Swoop up all the tater tots in the cafeteria before you could?
Me: No! She was the skinny hot cheerleader who reminded me how fat I was every day!
Mag: She was a hot cheerleader? Wow. Did she eat the mascot?
Me: I don’t know what to do.
Mag: Did she recognize you?
Me: No.
Mag: Well then get revenge on that pom-pom-twirlin’ cunt.
Me: What do you mean?
Mag: Sign her up, then give her to me as a client. I’ll make sure she doesn’t lose the weight. Hey, I can even get her fatter! I’ll tell her that she should do the mayo-and-cream-cheese diet! It might even kill her!
Me: I don’t know—
Mag: Ok, well you figure it out! I gotta go! Ape face is on!
I took a deep breath and walked back out to the lobby. Lacy had finished filling out her health sheet so I walked her back to the scale. We made small talk.
Me: So, what brings you in today?
Lacy: I just need to get off all this baby weight.
Baby weight?? She had a baby? The plot was thickening and this had just gone from a sitcom to a Diablo Cody movie. Except with less witty banter and more sad, fat tears.
Me: Does your husband know you’re here?
Lacy: Oh, I don’t have one.
Single parent at twenty? This had just gone from a Diablo Cody movie to an MTV reality show! Except with less weave snatching but the same number of sad, fat tears. As I turned on the scale she looked at it with fear in her eyes. I started feeling less intimidated by her. She wasn’t the evil queen bee I hid from in high school. She was a sad girl who had been through a lot of hardship since then. I didn’t quite know how to deal with this revelation. I wanted to cry but I also wanted to punch her in the face for calling me “Six-Pack Back Fat” for four years. But from the looks of it, life had already punched her in the face. And then kicked her while she was down. We went back to my office and sat down. She teared up, and I handed her a tissue.
Me: So, tell me a little bit about why you want to lose the weight.
Lacy: Well, after I found out I was pregnant I fell into a depression. I just started eating everything around me. My boyfriend left when he found out about the baby. It’s fine, he was an asshole anyways. I was only with him because he was the only guy I had ever been with in high school. I guess I was too scared to leave.
She was right. He was an asshole. Her boyfriend had been a football-playing douchebag and had also made my life miserable. One time he started a rumor that I had herpes. Not from sex, but from a dirty toilet seat that I sat on at a Del Taco. The sad part is that it’s totally possible. I used a lot of toilets at a lot of Del Tacos. Sometimes your body can’t wait till you get home.
Me: What made you want to lose the weight now?
Lacy: I’m tired of hiding. I haven’t seen any of my friends for over a year because I don’t want them to see me like this. I was scared to even come today because I thought maybe someone would recognize me. I usually just take care of the baby and ask my mom to go out and get groceries and stuff. I don’t even remember the last time I did something fun on the weekend.
I wanted to tell Lacy who I was but I was afraid it would make her run away. So instead I listened and tried to explain to her how the weight-loss program worked. We talked for about an hour and it was time for me to assign her a counselor. Mag walked past the door of my office with a big smile on her face. She couldn’t wait to get her evil hands on Lacy and fill her up like a human éclair. But I couldn’t do that. I ended up giving her to a counselor who would actually help her lose weight. I walked Lacy out to her car. Before she got in, I broke the news to her.
Me: Lacy . . . I want to tell you something.
Lacy: Is everything ok?
Me: I’m Shane. From high school.
It took her a few moments but then it hit her like a truck full of mayo and cream cheese.
Lacy: Oh my God. Wow! You’re skinny!
Me: Ya, thanks. I just wanted you to know that I’m not mad at you for how you treated me in high school.
Lacy: How did I treat you?
Me: The way I used to treat a toilet at Del Taco.
Lacy: Wow. That bad?
Me: Ya. You don�
�t remember?
Lacy: Not really. I kind of blocked out those four years. High school was terrible. Every day I hoped I would get trampled to death by the school band.
Me: What? But you were popular! And hot!
Lacy: Thanks?
Me: I mean, not that you aren’t hot now . . . I’m just saying. In high school your life was great.
Lacy: It’s funny. Everybody always thinks that. I guess I put on quite a good act.
Me: Ya. I guess you did.
She reached out and hugged me. If Lacy from two years ago had known that one day she would be giving me a hug, I’m sure she would have vomited all over her pom-poms.
Lacy: I’m sorry I was such a bitch to you.
Me: It’s ok. I guess we all hated high school, didn’t we?
Lacy: Ya.
She got in her car and drove off. I was upset that she didn’t remember how horribly she’d treated me, but I guess I never thought about her reasons for doing so. She must have been dealing with a lot of issues that made her take out her anger on me. It doesn’t make it right but it makes it slightly understandable. Either way, I’d just had my first successful sale on my first day as a salesperson and I felt seriously accomplished. I walked right into Mag’s office and sat down next to her.
Mag: You want a donut?
Me: Hell ya.
MY GIRL (SPACE) FRIENDS
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Michaela Larson is a sophomore in high school. She has always loved art and takes classes every chance she gets.
I’m not really what most would consider a “manly man.” Hell, I don’t even really consider myself a “man” at all. I’m more of a “woman with man parts.” Kind of like that scene in Toy Story where that asshole kid made a toy out of Barbie’s torso and GI Joe’s limbs. I’m pretty sure that’s how God made me. He probably had an “oops” pile full of body parts and decided to throw them all together and make a human gumbo. Because my brain and heart skew more feminine, I was always surrounded by girl friends. Yes, that space was intentional. I never had a “girlfriend” until I was in my early twenties, but up until then I had an ever-changing collection of “girl (SPACE) friends.”
