I flew into a panic, not knowing where I was going to live. I couldn’t stay with my dad, who’d retired to Cabo San Lucas during Covid (nice for him ), and no offers of assistance were forthcoming from my older siblings, despite both of them having plenty of space . With nowhere to go, I’d have to scrape together an extra $1,250 a month to sublet a room in a stranger’s dump of an apartment, which meant I’d need to get a job. I know, I know, I should’ve already had one—because in this country it’s not enough togetan education; apparently one has to suffer for it too .
In a moment of desperation I applied for a job as a part-time “customer advocate” at Target (cue torrential barfing). The store was close by, it paid above minimum wage, and, like of course, Target was my happy place (note the use of the past tense there ).
Anyway, I got the job and promised myself I’d be out of there as soon as I secured a full-time teaching position. Six months tops.
**Slams head repeatedly on the desk**
Suffice it to say, that day hasn’t come.
I’m going to tell you what happened, but honestly part of me is dreading it. The last thing I want to do is reinforce the stereotype that fat people are “quitters” who don’t work hard or see things through. But on this occasion, I did give up, and I’m still wondering if it was the right choice.
All right, here goes.
In order to earn a California teaching credential, you have to complete five years of higher education and six hundred hours of unpaid student teaching—one of the highest requirements for teachers in the country. My student-teaching schedule was eight to four, five days a week, but I still had to pay my way, so I fit itin around a full-time load of evening and weekend shifts at the store.
My first semester, at a high school on the southside, wasn’t so bad. Though I looked and lived differently than most of the sophomores in my class, the kids were great and my cooperating teacher even better, providing a ton of resources and guidance, and helping to manage the students who acted up.
The trouble started on my second assignment, teaching social studies at an upper-crust middle school in La Jolla. Joining a class in the second semester is always harder, because you’re interrupting the class’s established routine. In my case, I had the added disadvantage of following Mr. Jeffries, a hunky former college football star with a sizable TikTok following, which blew up even more after he started posting funny videos inspired by his student-teaching experience. He was beloved, and I could tell from day one—in fact, the moment those kids laid eyes on me—that I was like a bag of Taco Bell Cinnamon Twists at the end of a Michelin-star meal. (For the record, I fucking love those Twists.)
“You look kind of like Mr. Jeffries, but like the before in a before-and-after picture,” one kid blurted out, and the whole class laughed.
I brushed it off.If you want to do this job, I told myself,you’re gonna have to learn to take a joke.
These random outbursts of mockery, I soon realized, were relatively harmless. Those students—in many cases, the less academically inclined of the class—were just saying stuff as it occurred to them rather than being intentionally malicious. It was the more intelligent kids who got under my skin, because I could tell they were going out of their way to hurt me.
There was one boy in particular—for the sake of this story let’s call him Tentacruel (that one’s for all you Pokémon fans ). Tentacruel would sit at the back of the class, often with his feet on the desk. He wasn’t a hard worker but was naturally gifted, doing no work and acing every test and quiz. He had a certain talent for pinpointing my shortcomings and insecurities and calling them out in front of the class—making fun of my Target-brand clothes and how they fit, humiliating me when I accidentally misspelleda word on the whiteboard. “What, does San Diego State not teach spelling?” he jeered.
What made it harder was that my cooperating teacher this time around just sat back. No guidance or support, never helped keep Tentacruel or his friends in check, and if I tried to kick them out of class and they refused, she’d just shrug at me as if to say,What do you want me to do about it? I just work here.
Fortunately, not all the kids were that bad. In fact, some were pretty great. For example, there was one kid—let’s call him Oddish—whom I liked a lot. He was smart, quiet, and had this dark sense of humor I loved. Carrying a few extra pounds himself, he reminded me so much of myself at that age, and I couldn’t help but be fond of him.
Once in a while he’d stay in at lunchtime and we’d talk until the bell rang. About his home life, school, the life he wanted to have one day. Funny as he was, there was a sadness about him that I understood all too well. I opened up about how in sixth grade Sean Davis and Reece Papadatos used to terrorize me about my weight, pelting me with French fries as I ate lunch, convincing half the class to call me Titty Truesdale. Knowing who his classmates were, I thought Oddish might’ve been bullied himself and it might help him to know he wasn’t alone, that there was at least one adult in his life who understood.
He started staying in at lunch more often. He was nervous because there was a big test coming up and he was struggling to remember the finer differences between the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. I created flash cards and we ran through them daily. He memorized all of them and scored a 97 percent, the highest score in the class, even higher than Tentacruel. I was so proud of him, and even better, he was proud of himself. I thought,THIS is why I love teaching.
Then one day as I entered the room, I saw him gesturing to a couple of his classmates, inflating his cheeks and cupping imaginary breasts. They went silent as soon as they saw me but kept laughing behind their hands. Was Oddish making fun of me?
I let it go; I was already at my wit’s end after Tentacruel and his friends had upped the ante on their cruelty. Like their classmates,they were each given a Chromebook to work on, which it was my job to monitor. I could see what the kids were searching in Google, and Tentacruel apparently thought that was a great way to send veiled messages directly to me.
Why is Mr. Truesdale so fat?
Did Mr. Truesdale eat his last class and that’s why he’s such a blimp?
Why is Mr. Truesdale so bad at teaching?
When is Mr. Truesdale going to give up already?
On top of that, the stress of my life outside the classroom was starting to get to me. I was working close to seventy hours a week, not including the time I spent grading assignments and lesson planning. I was barely surviving financially, even before my car decided it needed a new transmission and brakes. I was gaining weight like crazy because of the stress of it all, and the worst part was that no one seemed to be happy with me. The kids hated me. The store resented my lack of daytime availability. And I kept receiving weird feedback from the administration about my “lack of energy in the classroom” and “untidy appearance.”
By this point, I was seriously beginning to doubt my career choice, and Oddish was the only thing making any of it bearable. So I gave him the benefit of the doubt.
Then one day as I was monitoring the class’s Chromebook activity, I saw something I wasn’t supposed to. Banned from using their phones, some students thought they were being clever by using a shared Google Doc to chat back and forth. I thought I’d be clever back by opening the document and messaging them to start paying attention, and that’s when I saw it.
I fucking hate Titty Truesdale, someone had written.He’s so fat and gross.
We need to get him fired. Quick, say he touched your junk
“Miss, can I be excused from class? Titty Truesdale tickled my big ol tiddies!”
