Chapter 1 - moving in

I was excited to get the job offer. Everything about it was better than my old job - more money, more prestige, more potential for advancement. The one drawback was that my new job was in a different city, I knew absolutely no one there. I'd miss the city that had become my home, I moved here right after college. I'd miss the friends I had made over the last four years, the local hangouts.

Still, it was too good an opportunity to pass up so I took the job. My next order of business was finding a place to live, moving as a single young women is never fun but I had no choice. I turned to the patron saint of out-of-towners and the desperate: Craigslist. The first few apartments I looked at were not going to work. Dogs, I'm allergic. Cats, also allergic. A creepy male roommate who made the dog and cat apartments look good.

I was about to give up when I found a nice apartment in a cute neighborhood within my price range. The current tenant was a nice 30-year old woman, just a couple years older than me, she was looking for a new roommate. She and I had similar interests, board games and the same types of movies and books, it would be nice to have a roommate I could be friends with. I asked her if the big nearby park was good for jogging or biking, she said the parks were safe but that she didn't go there often.

Perfect, I had found my new home. The landlord wanted me to sign up for one-year to get added onto the lease but that didn't seem too unreasonable. I loaded up my car and the U Haul and drove to my new home.

I pulled up to my new building and got out the first box.

"You must be Emmy. I'm your roommate Beth," said a voice coming up to me.

I put down the box and turned around to shake her hand. She was huge. Beth had to weigh at least 300 pounds and wasn't hiding it. She wore a tight t-shirt that showed off her many rolls.

"Do you want help moving stuff in?" asked Beth.

I gave her a small box and we walked in.

"Sorry, everything is such a mess. I haven't kept things up since my old roommate moved out. I work from home so it is easy to let things get out of hand," said Beth.

"It's fine," I said. I'm just glad that she cared that she was messy, that's better than most of the roommates I've had.

Beth helped me move in a few more boxes but I could tell she was getting tired so I told her to take a break. She sat down on the couch and munched away on some snack while I moved in the rest of my stuff by myself.

As I was putting away my clothes, Beth came up and asked, "Hey, do you want something for dinner? My treat."

"Um, sure, whatever," I said. I didn't want to be impolite.

I was sweaty from moving so I went to go take a shower but found that the shower was too mildewy for me to feel comfortable in. I was getting prepared to clean the bathroom when a delivery guy showed up, guess cleaning would have to wait until after dinner. Beth had bought us a Chinese feast, enough food for 5 people. General Tso's, egg foo young, crab rangoon, wonton soup, sweet and sour shrimp.

"I didn't know what you liked so I got a lot. Plus, we'll have leftovers for tomorrow," said Beth.

I poured myself a bowl of soup, got a small portion of the shrimp and a rangoon. I cleared some space on the messy coffee table and sat down on the couch. Beth put on a movie and made herself a huge plate of fried brown foods and sat down next to me. She started eagerly chowing down as I poked at my food.

"Oh my god, this General Tso's is so good, you have to try this," said Beth pushing more food onto my plate.

I didn't want to say no but Beth kept on shoveling portions of everything onto my plate, Beth reminded me of my grandmother who was always trying to get everyone to eat more. I had only planned to eat one plate worth of food but its hard when more and more food keeps showing up on the plate. After tonight, I would lay down the rules but I didn't want to disappoint my generous, ginormous host. Eventually, she stopped and I was finally able to stop eating.

I prepared to sit back, watch the movie and fall into a food coma but we got bored with the movie and started talking. About our college experiences, careers, families. Despite my shock at Beth's appearance and the state of the apartment, I must admit, she was funny, smart and nice. She had a cute face that radiated friendliness. I wasn't so concerned about living here anymore. I thought that maybe I'd even be able to her exercise and eat better.

I went to bed stuffed. I thought that would be a one-time thing, I was wrong.