Another Sad Story: Washington DC
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| No that isn't a beached whale in full human regalia, it's just me. The infamous Beach |
In high school I went on my schools senior trip to Washington DC. The trip was intended to be 5 days, we would take a charter bus. See some historical sights yadayada. I forget how much the cost was but my mom thought it would be good for me to go, so she paid. I was nervous from the beginning, I had never spent a night out of town, but was a bit excited to say I'd been to Washington.
My mom actually got me some new outfits to wear to the occasion, I hated them all. They were snug, and were branded, I've never liked branded clothing they looked warped and just bad on me. However, it wasn't like I looked better in anything else. The day came, well actually night, that we set off, I remember that night well,
I began regretting this already, thinking maybe calling mom to come back and pick me up before the bus takes off, not just because of the seat incident, but I was noticing how out of place I was, there were social pockets all around the bus, indistinguishable chatter, laughter, conversations. I decided to stick through it. It was long bus ride to DC, we stopped at a few places, McDonald's being one, I can't remember what if anything is I got. We arrived in DC sometime in the mid-afternoon. It was hot, we hit up some theater, there was a ton of walking (my feet just weren't ready). To really bump things up a notch apparently every other school in the country planned their trips at the exact same time, so I really don't need to type out how I was dealing with tons and tons of students ranging anywhere from 3rd-12th grade staring me down left and right as I came and went with my school to various sights and attractions.
Everything was rather expensive, I spent 8$ on a single slice of pizza the first day, I mean it was sort of big, but not 8 dollars big! I trailed behind the class anytime extensive walking was required, my clothes had me looking like a stuffed pepper, I was so utterly self conscious, I was a million miles from home, I wasn't enjoying this, and I honestly just felt like the loser I was. Then it got worse, the third day of the trip happened.
The day began a bit iffy. We were going to a beach this day, I'm actually not sure if this was located in or just outside of DC, either way it was a bit chilly, not that it mattered to me, there wasn't a chance I was going in the water anyways. I was nervous about this the entire bus ride heading up because guys like me don't go to the beach, or beach like areas. When we arrived to this very touristy beach, it's everyman for themselves until X:XX so people head off in various groups, I of course, am solo and just wonder around and see the various shops, at some point of my wondering a woman comes up to me and begins lecturing about my weight. She's asking rhetorical questions like you know being that big isn't healthy right? And know you could have a heart attack? She goes on and on about dying at an early age, and I'm just standing their nodding my head agreeing, but this whole thing has me devastated. She finally stops, wishes me a good day and flies away on her broomstick, well... that's not exactly how she left, but she did leave.
I ended up going to go sit on some bench, needing to take that situation in, as far as I was concerned my trip ended right there. Interestingly I knew her intent wasn't ill, but there just isn't a good way to go to an overweight person and say "so about that weight, ever thought about losing it?" "Big, you're it" "healthy, you're not." The same day a girl on the trips boyfriend got in a fatal car crash (back home) so we decided to make that our last day and headed back the following day.
I did lose like like 15 lbs over that 4 days though. So there is that.
