Member-only story
When You Don’t Fit In to the World Around You
“Superfat!” sounds like a cool superhero name. It’s anything but.
When I went to college in Reno, I dreaded going into my Intro to Secondary Education class. Not because I didn’t like the subject or the professor, but because of the desks.
They were these tiny little things, the seats attached to the table. Every other student fit into them just fine, but me? At the beginning of the lesson, I’d have to squeeze myself into the space and sit, the weight of the table cutting into bulk of my stomach for the entire 90-minute lesson.
Finally, at the end of the lecture, I’d wait for the classroom to clear — an idea I picked up after the disparaging looks from my classmates during the first week or two — before trying to get myself out of the contraption.
It was never easy.
I’d have to brace myself against another desk and pull myself out — afraid the whole while that I’d fall over. In the scuffle, I’d usually knock the chairs around me out of their neat rows. Of course, I’d rearrange them before I left.
All of this was done under the sturdy gaze of my steel-haired professor. She never offered help. Never suggested that maybe I should sit at the perpetually-open ADA desk. She never said a word; she simply…
