Riding Bananas

There are moments the universe sends us ever so often that are meant to keep our humility in check. The literature, the mythology and the romantic comedy genre dictates that those acts of comeuppance are supposed to come when your boots are little too big, your ego over inflated or your hubris is going to destroy a plot point. The universe gives fuck all cares about the supposed to of genre rules.

The size of my undies is referenced in the title of my blog. The tag line says I’ve spent a lifetime trying to fit into smaller pants. The world, and its players, have convinced me that the size of my pants is completely inferior to anything close to being acceptable or desirable. I’ve made some drastic and life altering decisions in order to get smaller pants. And I did, for a while. They were still size 14/16 smaller pants but they were from the skinny person size 14/16 pants. So you know, different.

I’m not suggesting for a single second that this shit is acceptable. Pants should be god -damned pants and you should be able to buy them in all sizes and colours from shops that sell god-damned pants. But if you own fat girl pants, you also know that the size 16 pants in the skinny girl section of target are a very different pair of pants than the size 16 in the plus size section. And I was super fucking proud of my new pants. It was hard work to make them fit. But alas, in the roller coaster of life – easy come, easy go.

(Here’s a side note but interesting point: It was a fuck load easier in the fat world than straddling the inbetweens. Nobody bloody wants you. Not the fat girl section and it’s elasticised waistbands and not the pintucks and high-waistedness of the skinny girl section. Back to the faithful smock dress you go.)

Those pants no longer fit. My pants are back in the fat girl section of the solid 16/18 size bracket. Not close to the skinny girl 16. But it’s still a far cry from the size 22/24 pants that I loathed. I can not hide that my tiny human’s left over chicken nugget diet has done me any favours. Nor has the ‘I can’t be fucked to feed myself and clean up after her and I’ rhetoric. It’s plain for all to see, that my mid section, and a few others, have expanded since Phase 648 of motherhood has set in. (Woohoo! Only 11 498 to go!)

And while I’m not overjoyed at the size of my pants, they are just numbers and I still eat the bloody chicken nuggets. But since I bought the size 14 pants all those years ago, I haven’t had to do a number of things. I haven’t had to ask for a seatbelt extender on an aeroplane, I haven’t checked the weight limit on a bridge, I haven’t checked for witnesses when I’ve bought a doughnut and I’ve not asked to borrow my Nanny’s bowls uniform to find white pants that fit. I also still haven’t sat on a white plastic chair but I don’t have a fucking death wish.

This weekend, in all of my cockiness and arrogance of not having to fear doughnut judgement, I took my kid to SeaWorld. Super fat Anna would have died at the thought. The rides, the lap bars not closing, the fear of falling to an instant death because the belly bar couldn’t hold in the fat girl. Skinnier Anna didn’t worry about those things. I still hate rides but then it was more of a fear of vomit than sudden death. Plain old fat Anna didn’t think a thing about it. Off she went to SeaWorld with the three year old and a loved seven year old without fear of the kiddie roller coaster, not beginning to think about plunging to her untimely death.

That’s a lie. There was still fear. I did look at the tiny cart and hear it clack, clack, clack up the hill and thought for more than a second that if I was too fat, the worst that could happen was that it would come careering backwards past a few hundred people waiting in line. The kids would think it was fun and I could escape a few hundred people’s mortified horror. It was doable.

We made it through the roller coaster. The lap bar didn’t go all the way down but I heard it click into place and relatively small fears about being thrown out of the tiny boat shaped cart were soon dispelled. My tiny human had a few tears, but in case she looked like a scaredy cat in front of the seven year old, she bolstered and pretended to be excited until she actually was. She held my hand as we walked to the cart and then let go and walked away. “Hey, in this one. You sitting with mummy?” She confidently turned around, looked me dead in the eye and said, “No, I’m sitting with Jasper.” It was then my heart plummeted and the fear set in. By herself? Those two tiny little bums in those two big seats with just a lap bar? Really?

I knew my fear was illogical and mine. She had none and I had made myself a promise when she was born that my fears would never be hers. So I swallowed it all down, like all of my feelings, and got in the cart behind them. Perfect.

Ride two. The boogie bananas. Still in the yellow zone, she needed an adult to go with her and Jasper, while incredibly mature, loving, supportive and protective of my tiny human would not make the cut in the eyes of SeaWorld’s ruthless ride attendants. With her large metal bars and measuring stick, Moana, not the Disney princess, smiled and looked Abbie dead in the eye. “Ok, but mum needs to sit in the back.” I smiled and nodded. Afterall, we’d done the roller coaster. The bananas go up and down. How bad could it be?

We get to a banana and she tries to climb in next to her best friend. No babe, you have to come with me. Tears were shed, negotiations tried but Moana was watching and not having it. Eventually in our own banana, Jasper in front, we were going to catch him and everything was going to be fine. I climbed into the seat behind her, did my best to shove my knees under the seat and grabbed the seatbelt. You know the one that unless it’s plugged in the ride stops for everyone.

Fuck. In a fit of panic I tried. I yanked and smooshed myself as small as I could trying to make that seatbelt stretch the underestimates five inches to it’s plug. Fuck. What was I going to do? Explain to the three year old that I’m so sorry babe, mummy’s just too fat for the seatbelt and that means you can’t go either? Over my dead body. We’d had tears to get on the banana. We had tears when she fell over in the line, we had tears when she had to leave Jasper in a banana by himself. But no matter which I way I manoeuvred, I couldn’t get the fucking buckle closed and Moana was coming.

Picking up the pace, my frantic hands fumbled with the buckle. By this stage I could barely breathe as I tried everything I could to suck the loose skin of my gunt back into my spine. Moana, smiling like the actual Disney princess, locked Abbie’s belt buckle and I very quietly whispered… “It doesn’t fit.” She smiled again and not in a ‘fuck you fat fuck’ way, but in a ‘I feel you lady. I got it.’ She asked if I minded if she pulled it. Knock yourself out love! She asked me to shuffle to the other side as much as I could and gave that seatbelt a mighty pull.

My eyes were closed and I’d stopped breathing but in some sort of a fucking miracle, I heard it click and let out a sigh of relief. Moana, smiling, gave me a nod and moved on to the skinny mum behind me. It was then that I gave great thanks and eternal gratitude that the actual Disney Princess who buckled me in was a Polynesian Islander woman and not Mulan.

I was finally coming to a place in my fat acceptance to stop wishing I was skinnier. That the body I had, was the one I had right now and there is very little I can do to change it overnight or by just switching to low fat milk like the doctor suggested. I love my printed smock dresses and yes I’ll wear them with sneakers and fake Birkenstocks with my undercut and grey hair and rock my own mum uniform that fits our brand. And then I got in a banana.

The last ride on the checklist was the ninja turtle bike ride. Last visit she’d been too scared and hadn’t taken the chance. Today – brave as the seven year old made her – she was ready. Running to the height chart she stood proudly beside the pole. We had measured her last time and she was in the yellow. Which meant I had to go too, but hey, Moana saved my bacon, maybe there was a second princess hanging out at the ninja turtles. It was then that I noticed the sandwich board in unkid friendly lettering scream that this ride had been given a new height requirement and no rider could be under 110cm. My 107cm tiny human was distraught. But in true brave, kind and strong virtue, she clapped her Jasper around the ride and made me promise she could get two surprises at the shop on the way out instead.

In those few frantic seconds that I tried and failed to buckle myself into the hydraulic arm shaped like a banana, super fat Anna gave her best mwhahaha and dived for the crevice that situation had created. She’s never REALLY gone, just like Ursula the Sea Witch, she prays on the doubt and insecurity, and mostly the fear, that lingers in the clouds of those white plastic chairs that haunt fat people across the globe. The universe has its way of finding you. Even if it’s delivered by your favourite Disney princess.

The world works in vicious circles and she expects you to fix your shit before the next lesson comes round to slap you. Some of us take a few slaps, some of us have taken so many we don’t even feel them anymore. And sometimes she just slaps you because she thinks it’s funny. I still ate a Churro after the banana ride, I’ll probably still eat a nugget. But I won’t ever rest my arse in a white plastic chair. I heard the universe on that one. I listen. Sometimes.