I was outside washing my bike when Possibly Promiscuous And Definitely Amnesic Neighbor Girl pulled up in her BMW M6 (Base MSRP $81,700; somebody has been putting in a lot of late nights at the office). For a moment, I debated about running inside and hiding to avoid more awkward conversation where I pretend to be the person she thinks I am, but I realized that would be rude and, more importantly, very obvious. So I stood there in my shorts and grubby tee-shirt, hosing off my bike, while she got out of her car and said hello.
“You’ve lost weight,” she said kindly. “You’ve lost a lot of weight. That’s so great!”
When we saw each other at Christmas, I weighed 130. I currently weigh 130. Granted, there have been times in my life that I have not been in the best of shape, but I have always been rather stork-like and certainly not possessing of a lot of weight to lose. Unless you count limbs that I don’t use often, or excess armhair, but I don’t consider either to be disposable. Maybe she thought my hair had weighed a lot and my “new” shorter style was substantially lighter? Or perhaps I was standing at such an angle that I appeared nearly opaque? I’ll never know.
“Well, that’s good, I guess,” I said, smiling gratefully.
“It must have been the biking,” she added.
Awkward silence followed. It’s hard to make conversation with someone when they’re commending you on non-existent weight loss.
“Well, see you later,” she chirped, and went inside her house.
I went upstairs to the kitchen and made myself a deep fried bacon and chocolate cheeseburger. If random people think I’ve lost weight, then maybe random people won’t notice when I gain it all back tenfold.