Me love food long time

Since I was born - nay, since the dinosaurs created the universe - I have loved to eat. It occurred to me today, when I lied to my Subway sandwich artist and told him to the contrary, that I have never, ever, and I mean EVER forgotten to eat.

At my most intoxicated I have always known how to call for food. At any given time I have at least two pizza joints pre-programmed into my phone, so in my first five drunk dial attempts of the night I am bound to hit one of them. The victim of a flash flood while in graduate school, I forgot to shower, brush my teeth and even call my family, but I distinctly remember the Power Bars I ate during the two-day ordeal. I once had food poisoning and threw up for 14 hours straight. Even then, over the bucket, the toilet and later the tub, I'm pretty sure my thoughts eventually turned to pizza.

That said, it should not surprise us that over time I have fluctuated a good bit - up 10 pounds, down 20, up 25, down 30.

This brings to mind a time when I was up a few baker's dozens. I attended a wedding in downtown DC, and to my surprise a woman I went to college with, a time of single-digit dress sizes, greeted me in the church hallway.

"Kriiiiiiis," she said, her Estee-Laudered lips parting slowly. She put a hand on my shoulder. "Do you remember me? It's me, Steph-a-nie."

She was talking to me in the way that people a) talk to foreigners who have given them the incorrect amount of money at a 7-11, b) talk to old people with both dementia and hearing aids, and c) ignorantly yell at the deaf as if this will suddenly clear their ears.

At first I was sure something terrible had happened to her. Clearly, she had been in a car wreck, and was only now recovering the use of her left hemisphere. Maybe she had been dropped on her head while doing keg stands at Homecoming. Oh, God, or possibly worse - had that old wives' tale about the detrimental effects of blonde highlights really come true?

No, I finally realized. She was talking to me that way because she hardly recognized me in my chunkier body, and in her small-minded way, this translated into me not recognizing her.

I've since lost most of that weight but not the memory. It's funny that the image still comes back to me sometimes. No, not the one about her treating me differently due to my weight - this image is the one of me dropping her on her highlighted, Estee-Laudered head.