Fat People Breaking Chairs

In middle school, there was always someone being teased about being "too fat" to sit on something without breaking it. "She's so fat she'll break the chairs!" "She's so fat she'll hurt the horse!" It didn't help my self image that on the last day of 5th grade I was playing on a teeter totter and my corduroy pants split right up the back. Thankfully, my best friend lent me her jacket to tie around my waist and hide the damage until my father could come pick me up. But I always thought I was fat, and I was always afraid I was going to break something. Nevermind that I weighed all of 120 pounds. I had chubby thighs, so I was fat.

I grew up with this fear of being classed in with the fat people. I was a thin child, except for a few years in middle school when I got a tiny bit overweight, and I was a 140 pound, curvy, tall teen. But my mother was obese and my best friend was heavy and I saw all the teasing and snide remarks and rude comments people made about them. It hurt me for them, and it set a fear into me about breaking chairs.

And then it happened. I was weighing the most I had ever weighed in my life... about 160 pounds... and about 6 months pregnant with my first child. We'd moved to a new town and some kind neighbors had invited us over for dinner. In the living room, there was a nice floral couch. My husband, who, to my dismay, by this point weighed LESS than me (about 155 pounds) sat down first. I went to sit beside him and as my butt hit the sofa... CRASH! Down it came with a thud to the floor. The leg on the corner nearest me had given way. That three inch fall was absolutely humiliating! I felt like an absolute cow. I almost started to cry as I stammered an apology and then the neighbor laughed and said, "Oh, don't worry about that, it's been broken for years. It's a trap we set for visitors!" Everyone laughed and the evening went on. But I was horrified. Whether what he said was true or not, in MY mind, I had become one of the Fat People Breaking Chairs.

It happened to me again in 2007, before I started this blog, but this time I really was morbidly obese and I really *did* break a chair... in front of everyone. It was one of the first posts I wrote on this blog, sharing how I'd come crashing down with a hot dog in my mouth at my son's baseball game. It was just humiliating. But the fact of the matter is, this kind of thing happens every day. People who are obese sit in things that are really not rated to hold their weight and the chair breaks. Chairs are usually rated to maybe 200 pounds... the heavy duty ones to 225 or maybe 250. And a lot of us weighed far over that limit. But we have to sit. Right?

I have a lot of compassion for people who have to look at the weight limits on everything or just stand around pretending not to *want* to sit because they are afraid of breaking the chair. I was there. I lived that way too. But now, I face a different perspective. What about being the person whose chairs are getting broken? How do you feel about that?

If you're not obese and you have chairs or other items that are just not rated to hold people over 250 pounds, how do you handle it when someone who is 300 or 350 pounds goes to sit in your chair? What is your reaction when they break it? How do you feel? I never thought about this before, but I am thinking about it now because honestly, it is very frustrating when someone comes along, sits in your furniture and breaks it due to their size. Now I have started to wonder: when I weighed 278 pounds, did my friends dread me coming over, wondering if I would break something? Probably not... but I have heard such comments from strangers.

Now that I look a "normal" weight, people seem to have turned off their Fat Person Comments filter when I am around. After all, people cannot tell that I used to be morbidly obese. They talk to each other in the grocery store or the mall or while we watch our kids dance. People talk differently if no overtly obese people are within earshot. I was dismayed to find this out. Shocked, actually. "Oh, Sue is coming over for dinner and every time she leaves we have to reinforce our dining room chairs. I really hate it. I don't want my dining room chairs broken!" and "Yeah we didn't invite Bill to the tailgate party. We can't afford to keep buying new lawn chairs every time he comes over and breaks one." Did people talk about me that way? I wonder.

And I have to admit that I have had similar thoughts about Fat People Breaking Chairs myself. I had this really nice wooden glider that my first husband bought me as a birthday present right before I delivered our first child over 20 years ago. That chair is very special to me. I rocked each of my first four babies in that chair from the day they came home from the hospital until they were too big to get on my lap. I nursed them in the middle of the night in that chair, rocking and singing to my babies. I love that chair. Many years ago I dated a man who weighed about 350 pounds. He decided he liked to sit in that chair. I thought nothing of it until... crack. The solid oak bottom of the chair broke under his weight. The screws also sheared off in some strange manner because of his weight rocking on them. The beloved chair still sits in a corner, waiting to be fixed, unable to be used. Another time, a friend was at my home for dinner. When he left, the toilet seat was broken... cracked right in half! To his credit he did mutter "the toilet seat cracked, I will replace it" before he left but of course I told him not to worry about it. And a 300 pound man who shall remain nameless sat in my office chair, leaned back, and broke the back completely off its base.

Now, knowing what it's like to be on the Fat End of the story... to be the one breaking things with my weight... I understand the horror and shame. I do the kind thing and try to make it *not a big deal* and soothe the person's feelings. But I admit it. I dread having my furniture broken by people who are too heavy for the strength of the structure. When a 300 pound visitor goes to sit on a chair I worry. I worry for THEM and I worry for the furniture. I can't afford to keep buying stuff to replace what is broken.

It's a really strange place to be, for me. I always maintain compassion for the person first and foremost. I want to be welcoming and nonjudgmental. But I also want my furniture, toilet seats, and lawn chairs to stay in one piece.

How do you feel about this?