chapter 5

Marcia Kirk was the picture of total physical fitness. She was tall, thin, and toned with long auburn hair and periwinkle blue eyes. So it shouldn't come as a surprise that she was a personal fitness trainer. Marcia had a secret. She hadn't always been this picture of physical perfection. When she was a teenager she had been a regular little piggie, weighing in at a not so svelte 189 pounds.

After high school graduation, she was sort of drifting along, relatively aimless. She took a job as a waitress in a little diner near her home and promptly gained another thirty-one pounds in six months. So there she was; fat and without a sense of direction in her life, when a VERY good looking Marine came into the diner for a bite to eat. He was a recruiting sergeant in the office just around the corner. For some reason he took a liking to Marcia and decided to act as her mentor.

The first thing he did was give her some direction in her life. He convinced her that it would be in her best interest to join the Marines. Of course, she couldn't pass the physical carrying all that extra weight around. Well, Sergeant Donaldson put Marcia on a strict diet and a strenuous exercise program. Within six months she lost sixty-five pounds and in decent enough shape to pass the physical. By the time she completed her tour of duty she had shed another forty pounds and was tougher than shoe leather.

In many ways hers was an inspirational story. The only problem was that she was horribly judgmental, especially about people who were overweight. She couldn't or wouldn't tolerate any excuse for people's being fat. She figured that if she could lose over a hundred pounds and create a totally toned and trim figure ANYONE could.

One of the people she was especially intolerant about was her cousin Magnolia Drumpf. She had gone to Magnolia's wedding, when she weighed a wispy 110 pounds spread over a five foot six inch frame. When she came back home from the Marine Corps, there was Magnolia, a total mountain of fat. Sure she had had six kids in six years, but that was no excuse for ending up weighing as much as a small car.

As it turns out, Marcia went to work for one of Magnolia's best friends. She had put this pudgy, flabby, sorry excuse for a woman through her paces when who should amble through the front door but Magnolia. She was wearing a muu muu she had bought at the Hippodrome, an outfit that despite its outlandish size still clung to Magnolia like plastic wrap. Marcia took one look at her cousin and was about to totally blow her top when she was totally taken with that muu muu. There was something about it that was captivating. More to the point, Marcia also found herself being more understanding of Magnolia than judgmental. They exchanged warm greetings, hugged each other warmly and then Marcia asked Magnolia where she had gotten such a stunning outfit. Magnolia smiled knowingly with a devilish glint in her eye and said, "I buy all my clothes at the Hippodrome!". Right then and there Marcia decided she just HAD to update her wardrobe. She couldn't quite put her finger on why, but suddenly she came to see Magnolia as being the height of fashion and being the pure competitor she was, she just HAD to get a totally new wardrobe. Magnolia very obligingly gave Marcia the address to the Hippodrome and Marcia set her course straight for that clothing emporium.

Marcia was totally impressed with everything about the Hippodrome, from the stylishly unfashionable neighborhood where it was located to the VERY sparse decor that made the place look more like an empty warehouse.

Behind the counter was a woman who rivaled if not surpassed Marcia in physical perfection. She was six feet tall with a scant one hundred twenty pounds stretched over her sparse frame. Marcia introduced herself and said that her cousin Magnolia had recommended the Hippodrome as THE place to shop for the fashion conscious. She said she'd like to get a pair of jeans to start with but that, in time, she would purchase a whole new wardrobe shortly.

The sales clerk merely smiled and directed Marcia to a table holding one rather ratty looking pair of jeans. They were faded and baggy and looked as if they would just SWIM on a thin girl like Marcia. But Marcia happily took them and went into the back room to change.

The fact is, the jeans looked totally dumpy and absolutely wrong for Marcia, but she fell in love with them at first sight. As she walked out the door, she turned to take a last look at the sales girl behind the counter, but instead of seeing a wraith-like skinny girl she saw a women who much have weighed 900 pounds. And thought nothing of it.

Funny thing is, every woman Marcia saw on the street was, well, IMMENSE!! It struck her as odd at first but whatever misgivings she may have had about what she was witnessing faded from her mind. Not only did Marcia accept the fact that it was "normal" for women to be THAT fat, she began to feel self conscious about her own lack of avoirdupois, so to speak'

It entered her mind that being big and round and fat was what "fitness" was all about. As she walked down the street, each woman she encountered seemed bigger and rounder and flabbier than the last. Marcia was becoming totally self conscious about her own lack of padding. But right then and there she was determined to do something about it.

She went to work the next day, only to encounter women who were nothing if not the basic definition of OBESE. She changed into her work out clothes when the manager of the gym where she worked came out and asked her what she was doing there. Didn't she realize she had been fired this past week for being so totally out of shape? Momentarily this threw Marcia for a loop but suddenly it all made sense. It wasn't the fat girls who were out of shape, it was HER!!

Marcia was nothing if not competitive. If being fat and round and squishy was what you had to be, then fat and soft and squishy is what she would become. She moved in with Magnolia and Ronald and set about a new exercise program. Did I say NEW exercise program, I should have said NO exercise program.

Magnolia graciously and generously offered to help Marcia in any way she could, having come to regard her terribly out of shape cousin with a great deal of sympathy and understanding. She instituted a feeding program that sent 12,000 calories a day or more down into Marcia's eager and expanding belly. Within a year Marcia was every bit as big and round, soft and squishy as Magnolia could ever hope to be. And when the two of them went shopping at the Hippodrome, of course, EVERYTHING was on the house!!