So I was involved in some interviews at work yesterday, and during the course of one of them, there was a fat incident. It’s testament to how far my head has come over the last few months that I was able to shrug it off without it sending me directly to the hobnobs, and in actual fact I ended up feeling more sorry for the bloke we were interviewing to be fair. He was mortified.

He’d prepared a piece of work for us in advance, in which we’d asked him to evaluate one of our stores, and call out some of the issues which he considered to be threats to our business. I work for a food retailer, and as part of his presentation this candidate had referred to the current furore about sugar, in relation to obesity and unhealthy diets. There it was, that word…obesity.

Talk about the elephant in the room, quite literally 🙂 He had a whole slide dedicated to the issue, so he couldn’t skip over it, and to add insult to injury he’d illustrated the slide with an image of the rear view of a very fat lady sitting on a fairly modestly sized chair. Spilling over it in fact, in a fairly spectacular fashion. And so there it was, in front of us on the big screen. And here he was, being interviewed by a lady with an arse every bit as big as the one in the awful photo he’d managed to dig up.

It was quite funny really, or at least it would have been if it hadn’t had one foot in tragedy. All the way, from reception where I collected him to the meeting room the poor bloke must have been thinking SHIT!!! The obesity slide!!! as my substantial arse led the way down his own personal green mile. And mid-presentation, when he got to that slide, well he clearly wanted to die on the spot.

As he tried his best to talk about how we might need to think about replacing lost income from sugary foods with healthier choices, he couldn’t quite bring himself to look in my direction. He talked to the floor, the wall, the window, and his fingernails came under almost forensic scrutiny.

His mouth had clearly gone dry but despite the jug of water on the table he decided not to pause and have a drink, I’m assuming he decided that the longer the slide was displayed in all its obese splendour, the lower his chances of me forgiving him for addressing the fat lady on fat issues. By the time he moved to the next slide he sounded like he was wearing a mitten on his tongue.

He’s probably still sweating more than twenty four hours later. And me, well…I am rather well known for getting a fit of the giggles in the most inappropriate situations. It took every ounce of willpower that I could summon up not to collapse in a heap.

Once upon a time, not so very long ago, the whole situation would have been as unfunny to me as it’s possible to get. I would have been more mortified than him to the power of ten, and it would have affected my mood for days…not on the outside, but deep down where it really hurts. Yesterday, genuinely, I found it amusing, and I couldn’t wait to relay the story to you guys.

There are times when this unwavering conviction that I’m heading directly to Skinny Town acts as a protective second skin from any thorns that happen to get snagged in my fat suit. No torn flesh and no open sores…just a few more signs of wear on the shell I will leave way behind me when I cross the county line.

What’s the betting that our meeting yesterday makes it onto his top 3 most embarrassing moments list..? The story of me and my arse will live on in his memory for a long time, that much I’m sure about!

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