Fat Chance

Sunnyside Up

It's unusually warm for a Saturday afternoon in January, which is why I chose to walk the 2 miles to the McAdams house. 

I was tired of having no one to hang out with on weekends, so I looked up Stella on Facebook, added her, and then messaged her to ask to hang out. I was almost positive that she would reject me or make up some excuse why she couldn't hang out, but to my surprise, she enthusiastically agreed to do something with me.  

"I can't have people sleep over for awhile, but my mom says I can have you come over for the day," Stella typed. "Here's my address, come over sometime today! :)"

I was still shocked even now , an hour later, at her willingness to hangout. But hey, maybe miracles do happen. 

The two mile walk gave me time to just be at peace in nature, which is something, as a very obese teenage girl, I didn't get to do a lot. But I'm definitely glad I decided to get my fat lazy ass up today to enjoy it. 

I finally reached the street Stella said she had lived on. It was the kind of neighborhood you never like to think you could have in you're town, the kind of neighborhood where 99.9% of the towns murders and gangs come from. It's basically the middle classes ghetto.

Sunnyside Trailer Court. 

Now, I mean no offense to anyone who lives in a mobile home, because lets be real, there are some very nice trailers out there, and not every person who lives in one is poor or involved in illegal things. But no trailer in Sunnyside Trailer Court even comes close to being a decent looking place. 

And even though I knew about her eating disorder, her wacky mismatched style and her loud makeup and hair, I didn't think even for a moment Stella didn't come from at least a decently off home. But everyone in our small town in central Ohio knew that Sunnyside Trailer Court is where people wallowing in debt and suspicion from the authorities came to die. 

For the first time since I received her message, I was wondering if Stella was playing some kind of prank on me. Maybe she sent me the wrong address. Maybe she didn't even like me.

But even though it was hard to believe that anyone like her could live in a place like THIS, I knew deep inside that she hadn't given me the wrong address. 

I continued on down the path leading into the trailer court. Broken childrens toys and overflowing trash cans littered nearly all the lawns and driveways of each trailer. As I moved on down the line, I was starting to doubt myself more and more. A dog started barking and I could hear an angry man shouting at it to "fucking shut up." I felt super out of place and uncomfortable.

Just as I was starting to think I had been wrong to be so trusting, I saw the nicest trailer in the whole lot sitting at the very edge of the trailer court. The trailer itself looked freshly painted and well kept up with. The grass underneath the snow looked to be pretty well trimmed and unlike all the other trailers, there was an absence of a trash can or any forgotten yard ornaments laying around. I had a feeling. but just to be sure, I checked the address I had copied and pasted into the notes section of my iPod. 

1503 Parkway Avenue Unit 7

I looked up at the trailer number again and smiled. 

This was Trailer 7.