It comes as a shock to absolutely no one with eyes ...

One of the girls in The Minion’s class has a mother that resembles me.  We both wear glasses.  We both have brown hair, worn basically the same way.  But that’s not really it.  The major similarity is that we are both larger women.  The kids get us mixed up.  Parents have confused me for her and vice versa.  It’s almost funny. Almost.

What gets me though is the look of terror in a teacher’s eye when a kid comments that he/she gets the two of us confused.  Because we all know that reason that they immediately see – and that is that we are both fat.  But the teacher absolutely does NOT want the kid to say that.  So she will frantically start naming off things that we have in common, trying desperately to distract the kid enough so they won’t blurt out the F word.

Part of me wants to just laugh and say it’s okay.  I know I am fat.  But I usually don’t.  It’s more enjoyable to watch them squirm and try not to offend me.  But this past weekend was a bit much, thanks to one of the grandmothers.

A month or so ago, I was at a classmate birthday party and the grandmother was there with the two girls.  Of course, she mistook me for the other mom, and asked me where the daughter was going to kindergarten.  I gently corrected her and told her that I was The Minion’s mom.  She seemed embarrassed and apologized and commented about us looking so similar.  Again, it was an awkward exchange because I know she wanted to state the obvious size thing but instead did the grasping at all other similar details thing.  It was amusing.  But …

This past weekend was her granddaughter’s birthday party.  And both of us were there.  And she just would not let it go.  Would. Not.  Every time I saw her she made a comment about how we could be twins.  And yes, we have the same hair color and our glasses are similar.  And we are both fat.  But beyond that, the similarity really ends.  I don’t know if the grandmother was just overcompensating for all her past mistaken identities or what.  But she was relentless.  Just would not stop about how many things we had in common, physically.  Except the obvious.  At one point, she was actually sort of following us around, babbling about it.  It was embarrassing.

After an hour of this, the party was finally winding down, and we both happened to be leaving at the same time.  She followed us about halfway down the drive saying “Bye Twinsies!!!”, and saying it loudly. Dear Lord, it took everything I had not to strangle that woman at that point.  I am sure she meant well, but damn lady.  Let it go for fucks sake.  Forever.

Now I can’t decide if it amuses me or just pisses me off.  Like if we’d both been super thin with brown hair and glasses, would she have had the same confusion?  Would she have made such a ridiculous deal about it?  For some reason, I think the answer to that is no.  Yep.  Not amused.

I realize I'm fat.  I won't get my feelings hurt if someone calls me fat.  It's more of an eye roll with a "duh". That's like insulting a old person by calling them elderly.  No shit, really? Like, that's the best you got? Seriously?

But I do really wish everyone would stop dancing around the issue, like the elephant in the room.