The Reinvention of Mimi Finnigan Excerpt

Chapter 1

“A Bunion?” I shriek.

“It would appear so,” answers Dr. Foster, the podiatrist referred by my HMO

“Aren’t bunions something that old people get?”

“Yes,” he agrees. “That’s normally the case, but not always. Bunions grow after years of walking incorrectly or in some instances, not wearing the proper shoes.”

Still perplexed, I ask, “What am I doing with one then? I’m only thirty-four.”

He says that by the atypical location of my bunion, he can deduce that I have the tendency to walk on the outsides of my feet. He explains that while some people walk on the insides of their feet, giving them a knock kneed appearance, others, like myself, rotate their feet outward; causing a waddle if you will. I have a look of horror on my face when he says the word “waddle.” But before I can form a coherent response, he continues, “The extra, weight (and I’m sure that he pauses to emphasize the word) that the outside of the foot is forced to endure eventually causes it to grow an extra padding to help support the, load.” Am I wrong or does he pause again when he says the word load?

Playing dumb, I ask, “And I’m getting one so young, why?”

Clearing his throat, Dr. Foster answers, “Well, a lot of it has to do with genetics and the structure of your foot.” Then adds, “And a lot of it has to do with the extra, weight (pause and meaningful look) that you’re placing on it.”

I am so aghast by this whole conversation that I finally confess, “I have just lost forty pounds.” Which is a total lie by the way, in actuality I have just gained two. But I simply can’t bear the humiliation if him calling me fat, or what I perceive as him calling me fat.

The doctor smiles and declares that my previous poundage did not help the inflammation at all and announces that the loss of another twenty pounds would be very beneficial to my overall health. He checks his chart and declares, “I see that you’re a hundred and seventy pounds, now. At one fifty, you should be feeling a lot better.”

“But I’m 5’10,” I explain.

“Yes?”

“I’m big boned!”

He looks at me closely and says, “Actually, you’re not.” Picking up my wrist, he concludes, “I would say medium, which means that one hundred and fifty pounds would be ideal.”

All I can think is that I haven’t been one hundred and fifty pounds since high school. There is simply no way on earth I can lose twenty pounds. I want to tell him that he has no idea how much I deprive myself to weigh one-seventy. In order to actually lose weight, I’d only be able to ingest rice cakes and Metamucil. But I don’t say this because he’ll think that I’m weak and unmotivated and he’d be right too. Plus I just bragged that I lost a record forty pounds, so he already assumes that I am capable of losing weight; which of course would be the truth if it weren’t such an out-and-out lie.

The doctor writes a prescription for a special shoe insert that will help tip my foot into the correct walking position and then leaves, giving me privacy to cover my naked, misshapen appendage. As I put my sock back on I decide that I am not going to go on a diet. I’m happy, or happyish, with the way I look and that’s all there is to it. When I leave the room, Dr. Foster tells me to come back in two months so he can recheck my bunion. In my head I’m thinking, “Yeah right, buddy. Take a good look, cause this is the last time you’re ever going to see me or my growth.” I plan on wearing my shoe insert and never again speaking of my hideous deformity.

The true cruelty of this whole bunion fiasco is that I am the one in my family with the pretty feet. I have three sisters and we are all a year apart. Tell me that doesn’t make for a crazy upbringing. At any rate, the year we were all in high school at the same time, my sisters and I were sitting on my bed having a nice familial chat. Which was a rare occurrence as I’m sure you know that girls that age are abominable as a whole, but put them under the same roof fighting over bathroom time, make-up and let’s not forget, the all-important telephone, it was an ungodly ordeal to say the least.

My sisters, to my undying disgust, are all gorgeous and talented. Renee, the oldest one of the group is the unparalleled beauty of the family. Lest you think I’m bragging and she’s not really all that and a bag of chips; let me ask if the name Renee Finnegan means anything to you? Yes, that’s right, “The” Renee Finnegan, the same one that won the coveted Cover Girl contract when she was only seventeen, fresh out of high school. Try surviving two whole years at Pipsy High with people asking, “You’re Renee’s sister? Really?” The tone of incredulity more than I could bear.

Next is Ginger. She’s the brain; but please, before you picture an unfortunate looking nerd with braces and braids, I should tell you that she is only marginally less gorgeous than Renee. She was also the recipient of The Rhodes Scholarship, which funded her degree in the History of Renaissance Art, which she acquired at Oxford. Yes, Oxford, not the shoes, not the cloth, but the actual university, in England!

The youngest of our quartet is Muffy; born Margaret Fay, but abbreviated to Muffy when at the age of two she couldn’t pronounce Margaret Fay and began referring to herself as one might a forty-two-year old socialite. Muffy is the jock. She plays tennis and even enjoyed a run on the pro-circuit before a knee injury forced her to retire. She did however play Wimbledon three years in a row, and while never actually winning, the experience allows her to start sentences with, “Yes, well when I played Wimbledon...” And make pronouncements like, “There’s nothing like the courts at Wimbledon in the fall.” Muffy is now the tennis pro at The Langley Country Club. Her husband Tom is the men’s tennis pro, insuring that they are the tannest, most fit couple on the entire planet. They’re perfection is enough to make you want to barf.

I am the third child in my family; Christened Miriam May Finnegan which against my express consent got shortened to Mimi. For years I demanded, “Its Miriam, call me Miriam!” No one listened, as is the way in my family.

So, while sitting on my white quilted bedspread from JC Penny’s, my sisters, in a moment of domestic harmony, decided that we were all quite extraordinary. Renee was deemed the beautiful one, Ginger, the smart one, and Muffy, the athletic one. With those proclamations made, they appeared to be ready to switch topics when I demanded to know, “What am I?”

It’s not that my sisters don’t love me. I don’t think they thought that I was troll-like or stupid, it’s just that compared to them, I didn’t have any quality that outshone any one of theirs. So after much thoughtful consideration and examination, like a prized heifer at the state fair, Renee announced, “You have the prettiest feet.” Ginger and Muffy readily agreed.

Listen, I know you’re thinking that “prettiest feet” isn’t something that I should brag about. But in my family, I would have been thrilled to have the prettiest anything, and I am. They could have just as easily said that I had the most black-heads, or the worst split ends. But they didn’t, they awarded me prettiest feet and I was proud of it.
Until now, that is. Now I have a bunion.

As I sit in front of my car in front of the Chesterton Medical Center, I become undone by the horror that I have lost my identity in my family. “Who will I be now?” I wonder. Oh, wait, I know, I’ll be the spinster, or the one without naturally blonde hair; my true color hovering somewhere between bacon grease and baby poop. Hey wait, I know, I’ll be the one who needs to lose twenty pounds!

I turn on the ignition in my Honda and hop on the freeway heading for the Mercer Street exit. Yet somehow, I miss my turnoff and I’ve hit Randolph before I know it. With a will of its own, my car takes the exit and drives itself to the In-and-Out Burger a half mile down the road. I demand, “What did you do that for? This is no way to lose twenty pounds.” Not that I had agreed to do any such thing. But, I wasn’t looking to gain weight either.

Typically, my car doesn’t answer back, a fact for which I am eternally grateful. It simply makes its wishes known by transporting me to destinations of its choosing; In-and-Out Burger, Dairy Queen, Pizza Hut. I’ve actually thought about trading it in, in hopes of upgrading to a car that likes to go to the gym and health food stores. But, no, this is my car and as a faithful person by nature, I realize that I should do what it’s telling me.

As the car automatically unrolls the window and then accelerates to the take-out speaker, I hear the disembodied voice of a teenager say, “Welcome to In-and-Out, what can I get you today?”

Someone, who is surely not me answers, “I’d like a double-double with grilled onions, two orders of fries and a root beer, large.”

He asks, “Will that be all?”

Still not sure who’s answering, I hear myself say, “I’d like an extra bun too.”

“What do you mean an extra bun?” He squeaks “You mean with no burger on it or anything?”

“Yes, that’s right.” He informs me that he’ll have to charge me for a whole other burger even though I just want the bun. I tell him that’s no problem and agree to pay $1.75 for it. I’m not sure what causes me to order the extra bread but I think it boils down to my need for carbohydrates. I have either been on The South Beach Diet or Atkins for the better part of two years and I’ve become desperate for empty caloried, high glycemic index white bread.

You may be wondering how I could have been high protein dieting for two years and still need to lose twenty pounds. The truth is that I cheat, a lot. For two weeks I jump start the diet with the serious deprivation they encourage and then by week three when you’re allowed to start slowly adding carbs back into your life, I become the wildebeest of cheaters. They suggest you start with an apple or a quarter of a baked sweet potato. I start with an apple pie and three orders of French fries. I have been losing and gaining the same thirteen pounds for the last twenty-four months.

As soon as my food arrives, I pull over on a side street and inhale the heavenly aroma of danger. The fries call to me, the double-double begs to be devoured in two bites, but the bun screams loudest, “I have no redeeming nutritional value at all!” So I start with it. And it’s pure pleasure. Soft and white, clean and bright… it looks at me and sings, “You look happy to meet me.” But wait, this isn’t Edelweiss, this is a hamburger bun.

After the bun I eat a bag of fries, then the burger, then the other bag of fries, all the while slurping down my non-diet root beer. My tummy is cheering me on, “You go girl! That’s right, keep it coming…mmm hmm…faster…more.” From the floor boards I hear a small squeak, “Stop! You’re killing me…” It’s my bunion. I decide that its voice isn’t nearly as powerful as my stomach’s. While I’m masticating away I start to think about the word bunion. It’s kind of like bun and onion. B-U-N-I-O-N. That’s when I realize that I’ve just eaten a bun and a burger with onion. I start to feel nauseous. If you squish the words together, I’ve just eaten a bunion! Oh God, no. I think that this may have possibly put me off In-and-Out forever.

I have a long history of going off my food for various odd and sundry reasons. For instance in high school, Robby Blinken had the worst case of acne that I had ever seen. I mean it was so bad that his whole face looked like an inflamed open sore. I felt really sorry for him too because he was shy and awkward to begin with. Having bad skin, did nothing for his popularity. Then one day, Mike Pinker shouts across algebra to Robby, “Hey pizza face, that’s lots of pepperoni you’ve got!”

I cringed in disgust, looked over at poor Robby who’s face turned an even brighter shade of red, due to the public humiliation and bam… I was off pizza for a whole year. And pizza was one of my favorite foods too. It’s just that every time I looked at it or smelled it, I thought about Robby’s complexion and there was no going back.

Then there was the time I went off onions in college. A girl in my dorm was blind in one eye and there was this white kind of film covering her iris. Whenever I talked to her, I couldn’t help but stare right into the blind eye. I was drawn to it by a strange magnetic pull. Then one day it hits me, Vera’s pupil looks like a small piece of onion. I went off onions for three years.

Now at thirty-four, years since I’ve had a food repulsion, I realize that after my first bun in months, I may have gone off of them. The onions aren’t such a loss as I already have a history there, but buns? I love buns!

Around the second bag of fries, I unbutton my jeans. The soft white pillow of my stomach immediately pops out and makes itself more comfortable. Sitting in my Accord with my belly hanging out, sick at the thought that I just ate a bunion, I do what any reasonable person would do. I drive to the strip mall where the Weight Watchers sign flashes encouraging subliminal cheers to the masses. “Be thin, we’ll help!” “We love you!” “You can do it…you can do it…”

So like the little engine that could, I squeeze into a compact spot and walk through the front door before I can come out of my trance. Twelve dollars later, I’ve received an information package and a weigh-in book. Marge, my group leader, takes me in the back to weigh me. “One seventy-two,” she declares. I want to tell her that I was just one seventy at the doctor’s office but then I remember the bunion that I just ate. Marge continues, “Good for you for coming in before your weight got too out of hand. I bet we can get those pesky pounds off of you in no time.”

I smile and secretly dare her to try. No one seems to understand that I consider one seventy to be a very sexy weight on my body. No one seems to understand how much I deprive myself to be this weight. As I have shown up in between meeting times, Marge gives me the basics of the Weight Watcher’s program and encourages me to come to at least one meeting a week. She also suggests that I get weighed at the same time every week as the weight of the human body can vacillate up to six pounds during a twenty four hour period. “Consistency of weigh in times,” she claims, “is the answer.” I briefly wonder if Doctor Foster would have told me to lose weight if I had been only one hundred and sixty-four pounds. Crap.