I come from a pretty big family. I am the eldest of seven kids. There are four girls and three boys. My brother and I are the only ones married. Everyone else was born in the ninety’s. They are the typical millenial children with electronic devices attached to their belly buttons at birth from the womb. This keeps me young, this keeps me sane. This also keeps me extremely competitive.
Do you know what it’s like to show up at a nail salon with two sisters in their late teens while the nail tech offers you a chair and two more for your daughters? No?
Ya, it feels just about as good as wandering in to Baby R Us with a pregnant girl friend and getting the old’ “So When are you due?” question posed to you, the skinny girl. The one NOT pregnant. Fine you get it.
It’s not because I look old that I’ve gotten this remark, it’s because my sisters look so freakin hot and young. The pregnant remark, well that’s not cause I’m pregnant. That’s cause I’m fat. And I have a permanent glow. It’s just how I roll. (That, and I like sparkly bronzer. Yes my glow’s a fake shine, so I’m a charlatan, so sue me. )
This past Passover my entire family gathered at my abode for a Passover extravaganza week. My brother, his wife, their five kids, my five unmarried siblings, my own three children and husband as well as a few other individuals who claimed to be related (I’m not naming names DL.) We pitched a tent in the backyard and planted a few extra outhouses in the back. It was like trailer trash meets the KOA.
After spending an entire week consuming hundreds of pounds of meat and potatoes, chicken, liver, turkey, and beets, we were bloated. We were full. We were fat.
The night that Passover ended, after we unfoiled our kitchen, put away our Passover food processor and loaded up on Pizza from the local eatery, we decided to weigh ourselves. Because that is what fat people do who loathe their bodies. They weigh themselves in front of all their family members hoping to spark a revolution.
The family had gained a ridiculous amount of weight. What with the year being our “avel year”, the week being Passover, and the fact that we have some serious fat genes past down from our dad, we had to come clean with the fact that we were fat. We were “avel fat.” What is Avel fat? Avel fat is what happens when you mourn. It’s like the body can’t help but crave cookies, doughnuts and enough Jeff’s burgers and hotdogs to start a new food chain with a big letter “J” that serves food with Mclarge figures. We had gained a total of 140 pounds between the 7 of us. That’s like another two siblings. We basically gained another family.
After some jiggling and giggling, we all put fifty bucks in a pot and we started our own Biggest Loser competition. Whoever loses the most body percentage weight by June 6th, which also happens to be right before the holiday of Shavuos where Jews gather around pounds of cheesecake and scarf down blintzes and other high cheesey caloric delicacies we will weigh in with a winner. The winner will take home a whopping $400.
So the countdown begins. We have one week left until this wager is over. And I plan on documenting everyone’s progress for the next week. I of course am the most competitive and living off breath mints and chewing gum for the past month.
Until tomorrow…..tune in with some personal updates written by some of my family members who I of course plan on beating. I plan on beating hard.
