Most people have a “most regrettable moment.”

Not me.

Except for all those times I used a credit card when I should have, said something really dumb, or said yes when I should have said no.

But specifically, that ONE regrettable moment?

Is an entire year.

I have a year of regret.

An entire year that has made me fat who I am today.

How, pray tel, does a year make me fat who I am today?

Let me be more cryptic specific.

The year after I graduated high school and before I met Patrick was a very exploratory year, and not the kind of exploration that required spelunking gear. Though it totally could have.

I wasn’t, we’ll say, focused on my school work. I was still living at home going to the local community college, but I really wasn’t home much. At 18, I was so friggin smart! and free! and a girl! and I was cute! and I had a job!

and I was HOT!

Oh, damns was I the shit. Long blond curly hair, size 28 men’s jeans shorts (they were cool back then), weighed 123 pounds cause when you weigh 123 pounds once you remember, had a cool new tattoo, and then another.

I was pretty much the one that brought all the boys to yard.

And they came for me.

I think a small part of me knew this, but a more conscious part of me just wanted the attention. That part of me ruled the rest of me. I was wanted.

Kind of like how I want freshly baked brownies right now.

Which brings me back to how that year made me fat today.

I met Patrick when we were both 18. We immediately stuck to each other and never let go. He loved me like no other guy had ever loved me. He respected me, he doted on me, he listened to me.

He didn’t want to let me go.

So I stayed. Thankfully.

He made me feel wanted. Special. Needed.

But I still noticed all the other boys in the yard. And they still noticed me.

To keep Patrick and to keep myself sane and to keep myself from making the other guys notice me, I subconsciously made myself fat.

Now, at 33, a mom, a wife, a woman. I’m not noticed. My husband loves me, I know this.

But subconsciously, I don’t want to be noticed because then, THEN, I might want them to be noticed.

Nobody notices a fat, 33 year old, mom, wife.

And, like that carton of milk in the back of my fridge with the expiration date of Sept 08, I just recently realized this.

Spoiled milk can become cheese, right? I’m pretty much the cheese.

mmmmm… cheese…

Sodas are oh so yummy bad.

No duh.

Now is when I hurl my fat ass up onto my high horse and beg our legislators to tax one of my favorite things to imbibe.

SODAS

Yes, please tax my sodas. While you’re at it, please tax cigarettes, tobacco, marijuana (make it legal!), and any food containing high-fructose corn syrup.

I’m asking you to take MORE money from me and everyone else for eating junk food. We deserve to put a few extra pennies into our future diabetes & heart attack fund. We deserve to pay additional cents for eating crap food.

TAX US FATTIES.

Why did I launch myself up onto this equine? Tonight while watching MSNBC and the great Rachel Maddow* (as all good liberals do), there was a commercial from Americans Against Food Taxes. In the commercial, a nice white suburban mom unloads her groceries from the trunk of her sedan and speaks to the viewer as a concerned citizen, scared that the evil government will take food out of the mouths of her babes for all those extra pennies she’ll have to pay for her “food” (*ahem* sodas).

Guess what, white lady. SODAS AREN’T FOOD. High-fructose corn syrup is not food. It’s a yummy concoction. Capri Suns are not food. They’re fake-sugary liquid candy (unless you get the 100% juice kind). Oreos are not food. They’re a delicious chemical compound.

I’m smart enough to know that I feed at the Trough of Crap. I know I’m addicted to sugar and HFCS. I’m also know better than to feed my kids high amounts of sugar and HFCS. They are severely limited on the number of sugary treats and do not drink soda. (They make up for my lack of parenting in the amount of TV they watch.)

I also know better than to believe that soda, sugar, and high-fructose corn syrup are foods and they are making us all fatter.

Like cigarettes and gas with extra “you’ll-die-someday-at-the-hands-of-evil-products” taxes, please dear government, please take a few extra pennies from my case of Mountain Dew purchase to help educate the masses about diabetes and heart disease. I can guaran-damn-tee that junk food & soda sales will not go down. We fatties are already paying too much for our addiction. Those extra few cents won’t kill us. The crap-food will do that first.

I’d love to know who is funding the Americans Against Food Taxes considering their supporters are corn growers, sugar growers, and republican legislators, and grocers. (Actually, I’m sure I already know who’s against the tax just by that last statement.)

So please, Mr. Obama and all you other lame-duck Democrats in Congress, tax my fat ass. I deserve it.

_________________________

*My girl-crush on Rachel Maddow has no bearing on this conversation other than the fact that I may or may not have been day-dreaming of her Awesomeness while waiting for her return during the commercial break.

This is what I looked like when I thought I was FAT.

This is what I look like NOW when I think I’m not THAT fat, am I?

Cupcakes! nom nom nom