Fat head.

I had a fat head. For awhile. The one up there. Did I notice that I had a fat head? Not really. People every once in awhile would make some comment about me. Somebody would mention something. I didn't really notice it. But then, last year on my birthday, in an act of kindness, Liz bought me a slice of cake for my birthday. In the cake, she put a picture of my face on a stick as a joke. The picture up there. I truly hated this picture. It was a picture of me, at some damn point in time over the last few years, with a god damn salt filled head. Just a giant head. In a cake! This was horrifying to me. 

'Happy birthday!'

'Ah my GOD. THAT'S what I look like? And THAT'S what I'll continue to look like if I eat this cake?'

'Ha...ppy Birt....hda...y to....'

'No! I look like a slug in pants!' *Throws cake against wall*

'Why do you always ruin things?! Why?!"

"It's my birthday! I'll ruin it if I want to! Don't make me yell, it makes my stupid fat head jiggle!"

That picture is and has been beside me at this desk for one year. I look at it every once in awhile and think, 'Jesus. No chocolate today.'

Chocolate actually was never the issue. You know what I was addicted to? The piece of food that I probably had two pounds of a week for about four straight years? Wings. Ol' dirty wings. I LOVED wings. The sauce, the chicken, the damn blue cheese. Loved it all. I would eat these for dinner. Dinner! On just about every menu they are an appetizer. People decided years ago that these were BEFORE a meal. Maybe to split with a couple of people. But for me? No way.

'Excuse me. Would I be able to just get some bread. Like two orders of bread.'

'Of course. And for dinner?'

'Wow. Did you not hear me you? Maybe you'll hear this, garCON. BREAD. THAT is the dinner. The dinner... is.... BREAD. LOTTA balls on the french.' 

Wings were my deal. When I was about ten, my mom would take me and my brother to this bar. This bar was in a mall, and directly outside the bar was an arcade. When arcades were a thing, sick, and every game was fifty cents max. My brother and I would play games in here forever. It was great. In the bar though, we would eat chicken wings. Why? They were ten cents. Ten cents a wing! At a time when wings were a thing, but people looked way down on them. 

'We're gonna toss these in the trash. Cool?'

'I'll give you ten cents for one of them.'

'You think other people would?'

'I don't know. Can I have the one that I'm willing to pay for?'

Would eat like twenty wings here. This went on here for years. Then in high school, I used to go to this bar that had karaoke, and a wing night. Wings by this time had gone up a bit in price. This wing night was thirty cents a wing. I remembered being angry about that. 

'Thirty cents? Back in my day, you could get THREE wings for that?!'

'Nathan, you're 18.'

'Yeah, and BACK IN THE DAY, when I wasn't PAYING for them, they were cheaper.'

There was also a time years ago when I was addicted to Lime Coke and Dill Pickle chips. Loved these. One Friday after work, I bought three big bags of Dill Pickle chips and a two litre bottle of the Lime. Went home, and played Midnight Club Three: Dub Edition. Crushed two bags of those chips that night, and like half the bottle. Just stupid. The last couple years, I didn't notice too much. My last day job five years ago, I bought a can of pringles on pretty much every lunch break, and eat the whole thing! 

'Huh. Once you pop you can't stop, right Nathan?'

'What?'

'You're eating a can of pringles.'

'And? So what?'

'The chips are gone. You're just eating the can.'

'... Jesus, CHRIST. Gotta get my stuff together.'

Seeing this picture of myself in a cake is what made me get serious. That gross head, to me, made me say no cake is worth this. My birthday is next month, and I'm going near cake. Unless it's carrot. And all the cake stuff has been taken out and it's just a carrot on a plate. 

'Happy birthday, Nathan! Here is a piece of ca.....'

'Carrot? You're about to say carrot, right!? I swear to GOD if I see cake I'm flipping this place!'

'Why do you always have to ruin things?'

'It's my birthday! I'll ruin this damn thing if I wa... Oh, it's not cake. It is a carrot.'

'Ha...ppy Birth....day.... to.... oh god.'

'Don't cry. It'll make me want to eat cake and get a fat head again.'

*Note* I'm not an animal. The above will not happen. And I'll probably have cake on my birthday. But, that fat head? I CANnot again. This is my own thing. You do whatever you want. 

Twitter @nathanmacintosh