Dribble, Shoot, and Run-101 Baskets

This is a Summer Lovin' contest story. As if giving my story and I your applause, please give me the support of your vote.

Charlotte finally finds the perfect exercise to lose weight.

Charlotte is fat. She's fat, fat, fat. Sometimes wanting to pull her hair out of her head and scream, she doesn't like being fat. In a television and internet video filled world with men lusting over skinny models and shapely celebrities, who wants to be fat? Not knowing what it's like not to be fat and made fun of as a child, she's been fat all of her life. Moreover, instead of getting thinner, no matter what she does, what she eats or doesn't eat, she's getting fatter.

Her being fat has destroyed her sense of self. Her being fat has destroyed her confidence. Her being fat has poisoned her inner monologue from positive to negative. When she looks in the mirror, she doesn't see her beautiful, blonde hair, nor her big, blue eyes, nor her pretty face, and nor her great smile. She only sees that she's fat. She doesn't give herself credit for her kindness, her good heart, her great sense of humor, her quick wit, nor her intelligence. Her fat body is all that she sees in the mirror.

By destroying her confidence and ruining her self-esteem, she's allowed how badly she feels about herself to interfere with all of her relationships, whether with relatives, with friends, with co-workers, or with her lovers. Instead of dealing with her weight issue, she avoids people until they give up on her. Now alone, unhappy, and bitter, with her fat body on her mind 24/7, she's allowed her being fat to ruin her life. Instead of taking a stand to take control her obesity, she's allowed her obesity to control her. She's fat and there's nothing she could do about that, until now.

* * * * *

Now that the winter is over and April is already here, it was getting warmer outside. Preferring to hide in her house in the dead, dark, cold of winter, Charlotte dreaded the advent of the warmer weather. Rather than trying to lose weight yet again, she's even considered moving somewhere colder, North Dakota, Vermont, Alaska, or even Antarctica, someplace where the winters are seemingly longer and the summers are seemingly shorter. Even though she hates the cold and the snow of winter, preferring spring and fall, she thinks about living someplace where she could wear a bulky winter coat over her fat body most of the year.

She hated the heat of summer with people running around nearly naked with nothing on but a small swimsuit or a bikini. She hated bikinis. She hated women who could wear bikinis. She hated skinny women who didn't have a clue what it was to be fat. With the warmer weather soon to be here, no longer could she wear her heavy, oversized, dark clothes to hide the body that she was so responsible in creating and that she so hated having. She hated her body as much as she hated herself for being fat.

Suddenly feeling like a beached whale on public display while imagining everyone pointing at her and laughing, she dreaded wearing lightweight clothes that would show all the weight she's gained over the winter. More than the public ridicule she imagined her relatives, friends, neighbors, and co-workers giving her, even though they didn't and wouldn't, she hated seeing herself in the mirror. If it wouldn't be so insane for her to do, she'd like to remove every mirror in her apartment. She didn't need to be reminded in her own house that she's fat every time she walked in a room and walked by a mirror. She already knows she's fat. How many times mush she continue to see her fatness. Instead of addressing the real problem of her obesity, if she wouldn't be deemed so crazy, but for a handheld mirror to do her hair and makeup, she'd paint all of her mirrors black, as bleakly dark as her foul mood.

Soon it would be summer, a time of invitations to the beach, outdoor concerts, barbeques, and pool parties. Soon it would be hot, really hot, and too hot to walk around in dark, oversized clothes. She hated invitations. She hated being invited anywhere. She hated having to say no to go to the beach, to see outdoor concerts, to attend barbeques, and to wear cutoff jeans and an oversized tee shirt over her bra to the pool. She hated pools. She hated people. She just wanted to be left alone. She just wanted to stay home alone to watch movies while eating junk food.

Whenever out with her thin friends, what was left of them after not keeping in contact with them, men referred to her as the fat chick. Men she didn't even know and who didn't even take the time to know her all wanted to be with her thin friends and no one wanted to be with her. Even her friends talked behind her back about her weight and called her fat. Some friends they were, which is why they're her ex-friends.

Women she's known since childhood and who she thought were her friends and cared for her, hurt her by calling her the one word that makes her want to eat more and get even fatter. Instead of getting angry enough to go on yet another diet, she'd rather find comfort alone with a good movie and fast food. She doesn't need them. She doesn't need any of them. She doesn't need to have a boyfriend. She's done with men. She doesn't need anyone to like her. She'd rather just be alone to eat whatever she wants and whenever she wants without ridicule.

Except for going to work, she hated leaving her home to go out. No longer able to hide herself in her house while blaming her absence on the snow, the ice, the sleet, and the cold weather, what would she do now that it was getting warmer and too warm to wear so many clothes? What would she do on those 90 degree plus days when everyone was having fun in the sun but for her? Would she decline everyone's invitation again and stay home as she did last year for fear that someone will see how really fat she is and how much weight she's gained? Or would she do the same as she did last year and all the years before? Never wear shorts or tank tops and never go to the beach. She'd rather sweat while wearing a sweatshirt and jeans outdoors while kidding herself that she's not that that warm and not that fat when she is that warm and that fat?

The last straw was last year when she weighed 200 pounds at the doctor's office. She saw the look on the skinny nurse's face while she was writing her weight on her chart. Kettle black, being that so many nurses are overweight, we'll see what happens to this nurse after ten years of sitting on her ass while working at the hospital, especially after she has a baby. No doubt, she'll be fat then too, as fat as Charlotte is now if not even fatter.

Two hundred pounds? How could she be that heavy? How did she gain that much weight? When did she put on so much weight? When all she sees is her fat, how could she not notice herself getting fatter?

She was never so shocked. She was never so embarrassed. She's never been as fat. She gained 30 pounds over the winter, as much weight as the biggest Thanksgiving turkey. She gained 30 pounds, 30 pounds. Unable to wrap her head around that enormous weight gain, that was the most she's ever gained over the winter. Normally, she gains five or ten pounds and not thirty pounds. Other than salads until she was hopping like a bunny, donuts, McDonalds, pizza, and Chinese food, what the Hell did she eat to gain so much weight and to get so fat?

Never weighing herself at home, she ignored her weight issue by not wanting to know what she weighed. Easy to do when alone in the winter, she'd rather continue believing that she didn't have a weight problem, that she weighed the same, and that she didn't weigh as much as the nurse said she weighed at the doctor's office. When seemingly she was always emotionally hungry, trying to lose weight was a real struggle for her and much worse than trying to quit smoking, which she did. No doubt, not having a cigarette poised between her fingers caused her to eat more.

Still, after the wakeup call at the doctor's office, by not eating and by starving herself, she lost 20 pounds. She kept the 20 pounds off but has been unable to lose another pound. She remembered eating more when she was stressed during her brief unemployment between jobs and eating more until she felt more comfortable in her new job. Now that she had a job and could pay her living expenses, she didn't have that never ending, suffocating anxiety. She just had the same stress she had before and that she's always had from being fat, lonely, and rejected.

Now that she had to adjust, get used to, and wrap her head around her new weight of 180, she knew she wouldn't lose any of it but would gain even more, especially during next winter when she hides herself away and has nothing to do but to eat. She was 170 this time last year. Instead of reaching her goal weight that she set for herself last year when she was 170 and wanted to be ten pounds lighter this year, wanting to be 160, she's ten pounds heavier than she was last year and now weighs a fat 180.

She should have known she'd gain more weight. She should have eaten less instead of eating more but between the breakup of her boyfriend, losing her job, and quitting smoking, she's lucky she only gained 30 pounds. Thirty pounds? She couldn't believe she gained 30 pounds. That's the kind of weight that she'd expect to gain after having a baby but she didn't have any children.

With her boyfriend dumping her for someone else, someone thinner but not as pretty, she was so sad to spend the holidays alone. She still has the Christmas gifts she bought him in a bag in her closet. Declining Thanksgiving Day invitations, she stayed home alone to heat up and eat her supermarket turkey dinner. It wasn't so bad. Being alone for the holidays made her realize what it would be like when she's older and didn't have a husband to care for her or children to visit her. New Year's Eve was the hardest. Instead of watching the New Year's Eve celebration on TV, she went to bed at 9 pm.

Looking on the bright side, grasping at any ray of comforting hope, at least she's not 200 pounds. At least she lost that 20 pounds and kept it off without gaining it all back. Now she only needs to lose another 20 pounds to be at her goal weight but how is she going to do that? How can she lose another 20 pounds when she starved herself to lose the last 20 pounds?

* * * * *

Instead of working in an office, instead of seeing people all day, she found a new job as a home healthcare worker taking care of Mrs. Morrison. Now when not hiding herself at home, she hid herself in her client's house. Going from one house to another, other than seeing and interacting with the woman she cared for, she spent day without interacting and seeing anyone. All of this self-imposed seclusion manifested because she perceives herself as being unwanted, ugly, and fat. Depressingly unhappy, she just wanted to go to work and go home.

Yet, she didn't allow her unhappiness get in the way of her job. Capable and responsible, she never missed a day and was always promptly on time. Whenever she thought she had a problem, she just had to think of all that Mrs. Morrison had to endure with her monthly doctor's visit when getting ready to ride the handicap wheelchair bus. Compared to the woman she care for, with all of her medical issues, she should have a problem. Caring for her made her feel better about herself. At least she was still young. At least she could lose the weight. At least she wasn't old, ugly, and wrinkled. She was just fat.

Held hostage nine hours a day, seven days a week with an hour for lunch, Charlotte had nothing better to do than to stare at the TV screen while she worked as a healthcare aid for elderly Mrs. Morrison. Confined to her house, either to her bed, her wheelchair, or to her reclining chair in the living room, Charlotte cared for Mrs. Morrison as if she was her own mother. With her being an only child, leaving her the house when she was younger, her mother died from a heart attacked caused from heart disease attributed to overeating. With her mother, Rita, only 5'4" tall and weighing more than 300 pounds, not there to watch her graduate high school, she prematurely died at only 44-years-old when Charlotte was 18-years-old.

Not such an easy thing to do, she remembered it took three burly men to carry her mother with dignity down the stairs and out the front door to the waiting ambulance. The saddest day of her life, she swore she'd never get that heavy. Yet, as the years passed, despite her best imagined efforts to lose weight by watching all that she ate, with her emotions getting the better of her, the pounds continued to pack on her body.

Seemingly, every year she gained at least five more pounds, sometimes ten pounds, and as much as 30 pounds with the breakup of a boyfriend and with ice cream seemingly more of a comfort than any of her supposed friends. Unbelievably, every year she was five pounds heavier. Admittedly, every year she was angrier and more depressed that she never made any of the realistic weight goals she set for herself to lose a lousy ten pounds instead of gaining five pounds more. Then, when she gained 30 pounds that one winter that put her over the edge. She was on her way to being just as fat as her mother. Would she be dead at 44-years-old too?

* * * * *

Truth be told, she loved Mrs. Morrison but she hated her job. She missed working in an office. She missed talking to people. Her job was so sedentary. A job that encouraged weight gain instead of weight loss, she wished she had a more active occupation only she didn't know what that would be. She imagined herself working as a dancer and/or an ice skater when she was younger but not very good at either, that was just a phase. She imagined if she had worked harder, followed through, and worked as a dance instructor, she'd be thin today instead of fat.

Munching on popcorn, after a while, instead of losing weight by curbing her appetite, even buttered popcorn, duh, was fattening and making her gain weight. Perhaps three bags of popcorn each day was two bags too many. With five TV's scattered throughout Mrs. Morrison's small apartment, no matter which room they were in and which TV they watched, somehow magically the program was always on a station break with commercial after commercial blaring in her head. Commercial after annoying commercial, the same commercials played over and again so many times that she could recite them verbatim. Instead of muting the TV, the woman listened to every frigging commercial as if that commercial or this commercial was her last commercial to see and hear.

A pet peeve of hers, Charlotte hated commercials, especially diet and exercise commercials. Taking them as if they were personal attacks on her by making her feel guilty for not doing more to lose weight, without a doubt, diet and exercise commercials are the worst in her face and most judgmental of her inability to lose weight. In the way they worded their ads and demonstrated their exercise machines with models who had perfect bodies in skin tight gym shorts, they may as well call her a fat cow.

If she had her druthers, she'd mute every damn one of those frigging commercials, especially the Bowflex and Total Gym commercials with that annoying whore of an air head, Christie Brinkley. Give me a break. Living in her ten million dollar mansion in the Hamptons after divorcing Billy Joel, Christie Brinkley doesn't need the money from making stupid exercise commercials. One would think, with the advent of cable TV, personally paid and supported TV, forty years ago that there'd be less commercials instead of more commercials today but there isn't. There's more commercials today than there ever were before.

Other than American Idol, which Mrs. Morrison loves, the worst for having the most commercials are baseball games and, of course, the Super Bowl. With them not just pausing for commercials in between innings and not enough that there are signs advertising products and companies positioned all over the stadium, now they seamlessly sneak them in between giving the score and calling the play by play of the game. Going through the expense of buying a DVD recorder, she records her shows now so that she can fast forward through the commercials later. A Godsend, the only time she's forced to listen and watch commercials is when she's caring for Mrs. Morrison or when she leaves the TV to get herself a snack, not that she needs a snack, Lord only knows she doesn't need to eat anymore excess junk food.

Perhaps because she's so overly sensitive to them but seemingly to her at least, some targeted commercials made her feel bad about herself. When they weren't advertising drugs, they were advertising diet plans, diet pills, diet books, exercise machines, gym memberships, and testimonials about diet plans, diet pills, diet books, exercise machines, and gym memberships. Thirty pounds in thirty minutes and thirty pounds in thirty days, she hated the Bowflex commercials the worst. They always had models who didn't need to lose a pound working out on a machine until they were glistening. She'd more willingly watch a commercial when they featured real people instead of tall, thin, good looking models, women that no one sees on the street and especially while shopping at Wal-Mart.

* * * * *

Apparently with no one happy with themselves in the way that they look, the world has gone mad for an elusive body image that most of us but for born to be beautiful beauty contestants and born to be sexy Playboy models can never have. Especially women, everyone wants to look like a skinny model or a shapely, sexy, celebrity star that they see and follow on television. Keeping it real, when it comes to food, women are just as hungry as men. Keeping it real, women want to eat just as much as men do but where men don't gain a pound, women gain weight. Where older men get sexier, older women just get fatter. It's not right. It's not fair. It sucks being a fat woman trapped in a skinny world where all you see on television are sexy celebrities and super thin models.

Sadly, tragically and unfortunately, nonetheless what they look like when standing naked in the mirror, every woman wants to look hot and sexy for their pig of a potbellied man who continues to eat to an excess and drink beer until drunk while being overly critical of a woman's weight. That's the reality that she's had to endure and contend with for the past ten years with the three men that she's lived with and with none of them wanting her enough to buy her a ring and pop the question. Yet, to her benefit, she wasn't as fat as some of the other fat Americans, especially those who frequent Wal-Mart, the grazing capitol of American shoppers. When positioning herself next to a much larger woman in the aisles, she always felt thinner when standing next to a woman who was much bigger. Only, the more weight she gained, women who weighed more than she did were becoming more difficult to find especially when seemingly everyone was suddenly younger and thinner than her.

She's thirty-years-old. She's not a kid anymore. Her life is zooming by her while she remains standing still in her unhappiness and depression. It's time she did something to help herself. It's time she took control of the one issue that's plagued her all of her life, her weight. Now with her closer to 40 than she is to 20, she needed to take control of her destiny. Always wanting a child, now she doesn't even have a boyfriend. With no family and no friends, she didn't want to live alone and die alone in the way that old, Mrs. Morrison no doubt will. Only, after being scarred from her last three love relationships that were more sexual relationships, she wasn't eager to take on a fourth boyfriend, a man who would want this and demand that of her when she couldn't even take care of herself.