Food, Girls, and Other Things I Can't Have

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My name is Andrew Zansky.

I’m fifteen years old, and I weigh 307 pounds.

Actually, I weighed myself yesterday on Mom’s digital scale, and I’m down to 306.4.

306.4 is big at my age. Okay, it’s big at any age. It’s not big enough that they make a Discovery Channel documentary about you, but it’s big enough that you stand out wherever you go. There’s no flying under the radar at 306.4. There’s a lot of surface area to reflect radar signals.

Dad says I carry it well. That means I don’t look more than 275. It doesn’t make me feel any better.

Mom says being fat is not my fault. She says I have a glandular problem. She says it runs in the family.

Grandma Isabel was fat. So was Papa Joe. Papa Paul is chunky, but I’m not sure how chunky, because he lives in Florida and we hardly ever see him in person. He learned to use e-mail last year and now he sends us photos. He looks pretty big in the photos. He’s always wearing a loose shirt, and his skin is very pale. For me, those are important clues. Most people take off their shirts in Florida, and their skin turns brown like car leather. But when you’re fat, you don’t take off your shirt for any reason. Not for the doctor, not at the beach, not anywhere. That’s why I think Papa Paul is bigger than he looks.

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