4

Well, reality caught up with me a few days later:

when a 4-week business trip came up for Silke, she

gave me an ultimatum: clean up after myself and

lose weight. If there was no visible progress, it was

over and I was out. It was her place and most of

the furniture was hers, too. When I’d moved out of

my bachelor pad and into her place, I’d sold, given

or thrown away most of my stuff since I hadn’t

treated it well anyway. I don’t think I’ve ever cleaned my microwave once in the five years I’ve

owned it.

The look Silke gave me before she left for her

trip that morning finally seemed motivating

enough. Again, I was wrong. After a promising start

with some yoghurt and fruit for breakfast, I felt so

ravenous by the time noon rolled around that I polished off two pizzas and a jar of ice-cream. I really

tried to eat nothing for the rest of the day but when

my growling stomach wouldn’t let me sleep that

night, I found myself in front of the fridge again.

Now there was no one around to look decent for, I

just cranked up the heat and spent all day in my

oldest, baggiest briefs that didn’t cut into my belly

too much. Another benefit: no T-shirt meant no

stains and no laundry.

You’d be surprised at how unaware you can be

caught up onto becoming a whale. I didn’t notice

until the end of week three when I had a craving

for Chinese food and decided to hit the buffet and I

could n’t fasten my jeans. I was so worried now, I

tried my trusty sweatpants next. Silke, the always

perfectly dressed and groomed, would kill me if she

knew I planned to go out in sweats, and semi-clean

ones at that, but she wasn’t here to keep an eye on

me. We did face time a lot but I always kept the

phone aimed at my face and that hadn’t changed

since she left.

Like the jeans, my sweats were way tighter than

they should have been. A nasty sense of foreboding

hit me as I tried to pull my largest T-shirt down

over my torso. No matter how much I kept tug-ging, it crept back up my sagging belly that hung

over the rubber band of my briefs, covering a third

of my thighs. I almost didn’t dare breathe. Could

somebody put on that much weight in such a short

time? I needed to assess the full damage but Silke

refused to keep a scale at our place, let alone a

heavy-duty model for up to 500 lbs. Since that was

close to what I might be looking at. Measuring it

was then. Hastily, I went through Silke’s closet for

her sewing stuff, throwing things left and right until

I finally found the 60” tape measure. I sat down on

the bed, not letting my belly sag down between my

thighs as usual but balancing the full bulk on top of

them. I trapped one end of the tape measure between two fat rolls and struggled to wind the rest

around my back and belly. Not a chance. There was

no way for me to reach around myself, and judging

by the remaining length of the tape, the ends

wouldn’t even reach!

This couldn’t be happening. How could I have

let things get so out of hand? With no one there to

force me out of the apartment for a walk or a trip

to the store, I had stayed inside and ordered in, not

noticing that I was steadily outgrowing everything.

Silke had demanded visible progress, and by God

was it visible. I must have gained another twenty

pounds in the time she was gone!

Think, I kept repeating to myself. The first step

was the clothes. With no exact measurements, I had

no choice but to order a few shirts, T-shirts and

pants in 8XL, two of them with those loser elastic

waistbands, just in case. Since I’d checked ‘overnight delivery’, everything arrived the next day.

The shirts and T-shirts fit OK width-wise but even

their extra length couldn’t cover my sagging belly.

The only option I had was to stuff it into my pants,

meaning that with this extra girth only the two pairs

of jeans with the elastic waistband fit. The result

looked terrible and there was no doubt Silke would

think so, too.

I got rip-roaring drunk that night. In the morning, food was the only thing to battle the hangover

from hell, and in this manner one day blurred into

the next. It was no wonder I forgot which time

Silke was supposed to be back from her trip and it

didn’t help that the apartment was a mess either. I

don’t think I’ve ever heard someone scream as

loudly and as long as Silke did. I’d heard all those

words before “lazy”, “pig”, “loser”, “no self-respect”, but never from her, and never within a few

seconds at that many decibels. I took the verbal

beating until the words “Look at yourself. You’re a

waste of space, literally. A whole lot of space wasting.”

I did look down myself. Actually, wherever I

turned I saw myself. It was impossible not to. My

gut, competing for space with moobs that probably

needed a cup size DD, was always the first thing to

enter a room. My arms, flabbily rolls, stuck out because they rested on the giant fat pads under my

upper arms. When I sat, I saw ass cheeks to my left

and right that invaded half the couch. I also felt myself all the time. My thighs rubbing each other, my

upper-arm flab jiggling or my outlying regions wob-bling when I walked or turned. There was no movement that didn’t lead to other movements.

How could I have let this happen? It wasn’t as if

I’d woken up fat, I’d been there for every bite,

watching myself grow. Except I hadn’t watched.

Somehow, I’d shut out the unobstructed. I had

turned into a disgusting whale, barely capable of

wiping his own ass anymore, let alone get a job. I

was a freaking waste of space. Mutely I turned and

trudged out, Silke’s words ringing in my ears that

she would toss in the trash whatever I didn’t pick

up by the end of the week.