Big AND Tall Is A Lie

So yesterday, my wife, a few friends of ours, and I went to go tubing down a creek. For those of you that don't know, this consists of sitting on an inner tube and floating down a creek (which is a small river). Its a great thing to do on a lazy day because all you have to do is lay back and your tube and drink. Very awesome.

Well, we get the the place and start blowing up the tubes, which even with a compressor takes a long time. As we get started, I have a difficult time getting into my tube. This is probably because I tried to do it in the middle of the creek with the current trying to pull the tube away, plus I had my floating cooler attached to my tube, which made the current pull stronger (and yes, I said floating cooler and it is AWESOME). I eventually got into the tube and quickly noticed that the water level was a little too low to be tubing down this creek. Every minute or so, a big rock would get thrust up your butt, which is painful, stops you from floating, and probably not very good for the tube. We got down about 60 yards or so, and I noticed my tube was leaking a little air, so I stopped and blew some air back into it. As soon as I sat in it again, I could feel the intake valve (the place where you blow the thing up) releasing air. I checked to make sure it was fully closed, and tried again. Same result.

Of the five tubes we took (all of them being the same brand and style) mine was the only one that had a problem. I broke a freaking inner tube because I'm so large!!! What's annoying to me is that I don't think I'm all that fat. For one thing, I'm tall. I'm about 6' 3". I agree I weigh a lot (265 pounds or so) but with my height, that isn't completely out of control. I can still walk on my own without a motorized cart thing. Don't need a crane to get me out of the house, and I can stand with other people on an elevator.

This is kinda the story of my life recently though. See, when I was in high school, I was 6' 2" and 130 pounds. I'll do the math for you, that makes me roughly the thickness of a toothpick. I'm serious though, I was REALLY skinny. It wasn't that I didn't eat, because I did. And a LOT. I just never put on any weight. Once I got out of high school though, my metabolism decided it was done. I put on about 100 pounds in a little over 2 years. That still doesn't sound healthy to me, but whatever. So I've gone from this dangerously skinny, Calista Flockhart looking little boy, to an overly large ogre style oaf.

Someone described it yesterday as "You don't realize how big he is until you try to put him into something." I feel that's a pretty good description. This was said because they have a few small cars. One of them is a Honda Civic that I can only sit in the front seat of, and only because there is a sun roof that can be opened to make room for my head. They also have a Toyota Prius that when I sit in makes me look like, well, this:

Actually, come to think of it, I pretty much always feel like kids movie monsters. Like whenever I'm anywhere, they ask me to get stuff that's up high, like this:

Needless to say, I was more than a little annoyed when the tube I was TRYING to ride in broke because I sat my big butt in it. But that is only the beginning of my embarrassing day. We ended up walking back up the creek to where the car was parked and had to go to Wal-Mart to find a tube that would work for me. The whole way there (an excruciating 16 miles) there were endless jokes about my size and weight. Including me going into a long rant about how hard it is for me to find clothes. I usually wear a 2 or 3 XL, not because I need it that wide, but because I need it that long. I have to buy extra tall dress shirts, which are difficult to find. But the biggest problem I have is finding pants. Most clothing stores don't carry tall or large sizes, so I've tried going to the Big and Tall store, only to be unbelievably irritated. The big and tall store assumes that you one or the other, not both. It really should be called the Big OR Tall store. All the pants I find are either the right width and too short, or the right length and way too skinny. I am forced to buy clothes that are 4 to 6 inches too large in the waist and 2 to 4 inches too short. Its really irritating.

So after lots of jokes about the shocks in the car not handling the weight, and me being large enough to put dents in the ground as I walk (most of them made by me to be fair), we get to Wal-Mart to find a tube made for a family. We get to the right isle (after returning the other tube because the nicer people in our group insisted it wasn't my fault, but a defective tube) we start looking around for a new tube that might be a little stronger. Being that its the middle of the summer, the selection was limited. We did find an inflatable kiddy pool that we thought would work pretty well (god, I really wish I was kidding), when someone decided to ask an employee what they might have. The employee directed us to an inflatable boat. A two person inflatable boat is the only thing they had that would support my weight. What's even more upsetting, is that this "two person" boat can support me and a toddler and we would hit the weight max on the thing. My pride all but gone for life, I finally agree to just float down in the boat. In all honesty, it will be more comfortable for me, as tubes leave 3/4 of my back and 3/4 of my legs just sticking out in the air, but still, I have to be in a boat to float down a river. We should have just rented a barge!

Well, that's my highly entertaining story (to everyone but me). To really fill out the stereotype (and because I'm more than a little upset now, and I eat when I'm upset) I'm going to KFC for a bucket of Double Downs.