Wow, No Thank You.

by Samantha Irby

I fucking love LA (dog birthday parties! spiritual healers on every corner! unironic oxygen bars!). You might not think so because I’m a misanthropic depressed person with menopause acne whose hips are too wide for every single restaurant chair in Silverlake, but you would be wrong. I’m a Fat Bitch from the Middle West and I love accidentally running into minor celebrities with my cart in the wheatgrass aisle at the Rock ’N Roll Ralph’s on Sunset.

I farted a giggle out of my mouth, then immediately shut it down because no one else seemed fazed.

More fat people, yes, doing normal stuff that isn’t “dieting” or “being sad.” But also, more young fat women deserve to look at a mirror image of themselves on a television screen (I know, I know, the youths watch TV on their computers) without the attached self-loathing and parroting of diet culture that we’re used to.

But for me, Shrill was an opportunity to put a bitch fat lady who can’t sing on TV, and it made people so fucking mad, and I love that.

If you don’t understand what the words “shelf stable Snack Pack” mean, you have to, excuse me, get the fuck out of my face.

I’m the kind of person who has to physically restrain myself from offering a heartfelt apology to everyone in the airport bathroom for farting after a five-hour flight. I cannot imagine having the nerve to force someone to sit next to me while I flush half a dozen times to disguise a totally natural bodily function that no human is exempt from yet somehow fills me with deep, unrelenting shame.

My brain is a prison, and anxiety is the warden. I am besieged by the undeniable urge to peel off my skin like it’s the layers of an onion until death claims me and I find relief in its cool embrace, and I know it took me a long time to finally call and I’m not 100 percent sure that this qualifies as an emergency, but I think I’ve reached my limit and I might need some help. Okay, sure, I’ll hold.