Being Fat and Lovely

Miss M, yes the office foghorn albeit an innocently sincere one, is being funny today. She commented that I've put on weight over the festive season. Never mind that the festive season refers to Chinese New Year and I'm not really close to being chinese for that matter, let alone have a reason to stuff my face during a reunion dinner gathering (I have reunion any other nights with my own family thank you very much). It's just her way of saying that I'm fat.

I stroke my protruding belly pointedly and said dreamily "Yes, it's 4 months now".

She goes, "oh, you've been over-eating for 4 months?, Wah, you eat quite a lot yah..."

I was like "I have to eat or else I'll be like the very gay Merlion over the Singapore river with my head down the toilet bowl before every meal".

She went (again) "Yah, but you really put on weight leh, especially at the stomache"

Me: Of course I've put on weight. It's 4 months already.

Then somehow along the lines of blur and reality she goes "oooohhhh, you mean you're pregnant ar?"

Me: ??!!

She: Aiyah..I see all those uncles at the coffee shop eat until their stomache so big but never give birth

Me: Auntie, hello, those uncles eat and drink stout until they burst. Of course all the fat run to the belly lah..We're women you know, all the fats go all over the place, not just the stomache.

She: How I know?..I'm not married mah...

Somewhere along the row of cubicles, someone snorted. Must be June. I was right. June was the same age as Miss M, and unmarried too. But she's as different to Miss M as a bar of snickers to a plate of stale cookies.

Miss M has been alive for like 55 years and she can't differentiate between a pregnant woman and a fat one but I don't blame her. She is innocently ignorant but if only she can keep her voice down. The way she speaks sometime, although ridiculous makes most of us torn between cringing into our shoes and banging our heads against the wall. Oh and the loud voice is not helping either...