A Common Pornography: A Memoir

Big Gulp

For most of my junior year of high school, I developed a strange dietary ritual. Before school, I would start my day with a package of Hostess Donettes (usually the waxy chocolate-covered ones) and a Big Gulp of Pepsi. Once at school, I’d put the Big Gulp in my locker and use it for quenching my thirst throughout the day, even past the point when the melted ice took over the cola flavor. My locker partner ridiculed me.

It was almost like an eating disorder. I put inexplicable pressure on myself to finish the drink before my last class of the day. I threw up a couple of times.

If I wasn’t eating Donettes for breakfast, then cereal was the usual replacement. I was a very picky eater. If I woke up early enough, I took a couple of pieces of my dad’s bacon. For dinner, we had very typical meat and potato kind of meals. We rarely ate out but when we did it was usually at Skipper’s on Friday nights or, on rare occasions, if the parents were feeling flush, Sizzler. At the end of these meals, Dad, too embarrassed to ask for a doggy bag, would wrap his leftovers in napkins and stick them in his pockets.