Fat Chance Read Free Page A

and supported my desire to try out, but given the fact that 250,000 people were auditioning for it, they thought my efforts were a colossal waste of time. To be fair, the odds
were
staggering, and being cast on a nationwide reality show just doesn’t happen to people “we” know. Plus, there was the fact that I wasn’t exactly famous for my track record of completing the things I set out to do. I always had wonderful intentions, but somehow, someone or something seemed to distract me from accomplishing the goal. And so I would go to the casting call alone, me, the one who doesn’t even go to the
bathroom
by herself.
    I also asked every overweight person I knew to go to the audition with me, but each person said no. “Have you
seen
what they make contestants do?” they all asked. I wasn’t sure if they were referring to the challenges or to the Spandex weigh-in attire, but either way, they wanted
nothing
to do with that show.
    As I entered the atrium of our local mall, I realized that my friends and family might have been right. The main floor was flooded with hundreds of prospective contestants, some with neon poster-board “Pick Me!” signs in hand, some with colorful Afro wigs, one in a full-body sumo-wrestler costume. Handprinted signs pointed me toward the line where I would stand for hours, left to my insecure thoughts about how I stacked up next to the far more interesting people all around me.
Fat chance
—it’s what I remember thinking about the likelihood that I’d actually make the cut, lose the weight, change my life for good.
    A casting assistant from the show ushered us into a meeting room six at a time. As soon as my group entered and sat down, a tall, thin, official-looking man with thick, gelled-back hair that made him look exactly like John Stamos during his
Full House
days glanced at us and said, “Tell us about yourselves, one by one.” He looked at thewoman sitting at the other end of the line from me. “We’ll start with you, and keep it brief. Ten minutes and the bell will ring, which will signal your group to leave.”
    I did the math and concluded that even if the other five people talked fast, I wasn’t going to have much time to share my story. What’s more, I realized in that moment that I didn’t even have a story to share.
    The first woman piped up with a slow, steady twang. “Well,” she said, “I’m fat because I drive an ice-cream truck for a living.”
    The hurricane victim made it all the way through the casting process and wound up being a contestant on the same season as I did. Told you she’d be stiff competition!
    John Stamos chuckled and then asked several follow-up questions about life on an ice-cream truck before moving on to the next person, who had lost everything in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. An ice-cream-truck driver and a hurricane victim? How was I supposed to compete with that?
    The third person was a beautiful young woman who explained that she was getting married soon and wanted to lose weight before her wedding day. She was so desperate for change in her life that evidently she even was willing to postpone her wedding date for a shot on the show. The other two had equally compelling and heartrending tales to tell, and as the conversation made its way down the line everything around me blurred out of focus as a full-on panic attack set in. “I’m Julie,” I practiced silently.
Now, what do I say after that?
    Finally that gelled-haired head swiveled my way, and I knew it was my turn to speak. Before I even said my name, I leaned forward, craned my neck toward the other end of the row, and with a dose of recognition and a thicker-than-usual twang said, “I
knew
you looked familiar! I was the fat lady chasing your ice-cream truck yesterday! You shoulda slowed that thing down … I was hungry!”
    Waves of laughter filled the room as I sat back against my chair and let my shoulders fall. When the impromptu moment eventually passed, I said simply and