Fat Terry

Gather around, children, gather around, and I shall regale your eager ears with a tale from my childhood. It’s a tale of tragedy, guilt, and barbeque. This, children, is the tale of Fat Terry.

I’m not going to lie to you folks: I was a really stupid kid. Really stupid. I’m talking so stupid, I could count my IQ points on my fingers, if I wasn’t too dumb to count.

 

Yup.

And nowhere was my idiocy more apparent than at the ripe age of four, where my most infamous lapse of judgment and display of childhood ignorance took place.

My family and I were having dinner at a restaurant called Fat Terry’s Rib Crib, which, if my foggy memory serves, had some of the best barbeque around. My stupid little self was seated in a booth, getting more of my ribs around my mouth rather than inside of it, generally having a good night out, if a typically ordinary one. At least, it was ordinary, until someone walked in – someone who I may have changed the life of forever. I never learned her name, and I don’t even remember her face, but I remember what I did to her.

For imagery purposes, just use this.

Before I continue, I need to elaborate on something. I was four years old at the time of this incident. And at four years old, the cartoon commercials bombarded me constantly with advertisements featuring colorful mascots and slogans. Everything had a funny little character dancing around trying to sell me something – Ronald McDonald, Tony the Tiger, Chuck E. Cheese, all those guys.

And of course, Cool Spot, America's sweetheart.

So when a noticeably overweight woman walked into Fat Terry’s Rib Crib, it was like the Michelin Man coming into an AutoZone – or, to my four year-old eyes, Mickey Mouse at Disneyland. My little eyes shined as I gazed upon this woman – to me, she was the one responsible for the delicious ribs I had smeared across my face.

What I did next is unforgiveable, I know. It had absolutely no malice in it whatsoever, please understand – it was a burst of uncontrollable excitement, of genuine admiration – but to her, it came across as the brutal honesty and horrible cruelty of a child. She could have had body image issues. This could’ve been the one night out where she made herself feel beautiful. Her family could’ve spent the evening before she left consoling her, telling her how pretty she was, and how everyone loves her. No matter what the case, I shattered every sense of contentment and comfort she had when I got up – literally stood up in the booth, standing tall – and pointed at her, garnering the attention of the entire restaurant, and in a single second shouted the most hurtful words that have ever escaped my lips:

"HEY LOOK, EVERYBODY! IT'S FAT TERRY!"

"F  k you, fat people!" - Me

The restaurant exploded in a fit of guilty, oh-so guilty laughter. They knew it was wrong. They knew it was cruel and hurtful. But the delivery of my outburst, my childhood innocence shining through a genuine belief that Fat Terry herself had entered the building, was simply too funny to not laugh at. My family ducked their heads in shame, trying to avoid the gaze of the other restaurant patrons, judging their parenting abilities by my outburst. They quickly paid their bill and we left in the middle of the meal. And as for “Fat Terry” herself?

She ran out of the restaurant crying. We never got a chance to apologize, or to explain ourselves to her. She escaped.

So, “Fat Terry”, I know you’ll never read this. But in the unlikely event you do, please know: I am so, so, so sorry. I was a stupid kid, very stupid, and understand: I didn’t do it to be mean. I really thought I was meeting a mascot. But I guess that’s really not enough to make up for the years of therapy I fear you had to endure. Seriously, every day I wonder how much my outburst affected your life, “Fat Terry”. And every day, I pray that one day, I do get to meet you, somehow, and apologize.

And maybe once I resolve this horrible memory with you, Fat Terry’s Rib Crib could maybe lift the lifetime ban they put on my family. Maybe.