As a boy, they nicknamed me Biscuit. It wasn’t just because I loved biscuits –though I most certainly did. It was because my waistline stayed in a consistent state of jolliness. And to top it off, my mother often made me wear a pair of absurd red suspenders to school.

Finally, at the age of twelve, Mother tried to help me lose weight. She put me on the Atkin’s Diet. It was awful, like living in a biscuitless purgatory. She fed me chicken breasts, cabbage, and the worst concoction God ever allowed on His earth: skim milk. It was during this period I took to hiding candy in my underpants. My buddy avowed that M&M’s only melted in one’s mouth, but he was wrong.

Very wrong.

Mother also tried to motivate me to exercise. She made me walk an entire mile to the bus stop each morning. Such nonsense lasted for exactly one day before I discovered the illicit joys of skipping school.

When my diet ended, thanks to M&M’s and Moonpies, I clocked in at two pounds heavier than my original weight. My father assured me the problem was genetic. “I was chubby, too,” he said. “So was my daddy. We were all fluffy.”

Fluffy?

To prove it, Daddy rifled through an old shoebox of photographs. He handed me a picture of a round child with cropped hair. The boy was identical to me, minus the Santa Claus suspenders and chocolatey drawers.

I hung my head. “Daddy, they call me Biscuit.”

“Well,” he said. “That’s just flat-out ridiculous. You’re no Biscuit.”

“I’m not?”

“No. You’re Biscuit Junior.”