Meaty Girl

The cheery chiropractor chattered ceaselessly while kneading the muscles by my spine.  He rarely demanded a reply, so I serenely streamed in and out of consciousness — until I heard the words: “meaty girl.”

My head shot up like he’d dropped a popsicle on a backside crevice.  He gently pushed my head back into the breathing hole in the table. “My, but you got tense all of a sudden.  Relax.”

Too late.  There would be no more relaxing.  I rattled my brain to recall how he used the words in his sentence:

  • “You don’t sweat bad for a meaty girl.” ?
  • “Meaty girl, remind me to put ham and Pillsbury dough on my grocery list.” ?
  • “I need a meaty girl like you on my bowling/mud wrestling team.” ?

Here’s the problem: I’m the opposite of an anorexic.  Instead of being a skinny girl who thinks she’s meaty.  I’m a meaty girl who thinks I’m skinny.  No, I don’t have bigorexia, where I obsess about being small.  Instead, I buy sweaters that fit me twenty pounds ago; then when I see myself on a video, I say, “Hey, that meaty girl has a pink sweater just like mine!”

It’s a denial thing.

My illusion could be caused by the full length mirror in our bedroom.  It’s tipped back so I look two feet taller.  Also, whenever I sit, I strategically fold my arms or a place a child on my lap, to hide the blubber cascading over the waistband of my pants.

I try to work out three and a half minutes every day, but my husband rarely sees the evidence.  One day, between bites of Doritos, he said, “I bet you could run all of the way to the mailbox and back.”

I smiled, thinking, “You condescending so-and-so.  You must think I’m an out-of-shape meaty girl.”

So, the next day I ran to the mailbox.  I only walked part of the way back.  Then I paced around in the garage awhile to get my breathing under control.

I’m going to blame this extra padding on eleven months of Minnesota winter, then do what I do every year during my 30 days of get-in-shape weather.  For one whole Saturday morning I’ll morph into a Flashdance maniac, (the Chris Farley version), exercising every muscle known to womankind.

The remainder of the month, I’ll baby my shocked body parts and announce, “I’d lift weights, but they’re so heavy.”

Mother’s Day weekend brings the city-wide garage sales. My mission: Find a $2.50 undersized sweater — purple this time — for the all-beef, especially saucy,  girl with the cellulite buns — you know — the meaty girl in the video.