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That’s how I would describe it. Only a straw. I would describe the mouth as just super tiny. Like a pea.
There was a regular jawline but I think there was not the regular jaw hinge. I think there was like a second jaw, a tiny one that made more sense compared to the size of the mouth. With tiny teeth. And a tiny tongue. But the throat seemed normal. It wasn’t clear. I couldn’t really ask him details about his physiology that would be rude. Not when he’s a guest at dinner especially. We just kind of had to acknowledge the mouth situation but then you don’t want to make the entire visit about the mouth situation you know? Bev is better at this than I am. She says she’s not but she is.
So he gets there with Steven — they work together that’s why Steven invited him. So he gets there with Steven and Steven had warned us about the mouth. I should say his name was Odd. O-D-D. Apparently it’s Norwegian or something but you say it like “owed”. Which is odd but yeah Odd, interesting right? So Odd and Steven work together and Steven brought him to dinner because Odd just broke up with his boyfriend I guess. I don’t know how that worked. The boyfriend and the mouth. Not my business.
But Odd and Steven get to the house and the thing is the first time you see this normal head but a mouth the size of a pea it’s pretty jolting. Like he smiled but it’s a very small smile. Super tiny. The cheeks don’t really move. And you want to, you know, act like the mouth isn’t a big deal like you’re above that which also makes it harder to be normal because you’re trying to be normal. So I’m sure we were being weird and overly welcoming to Odd. Plus you had the regular awkwardness of greeting a new person with an unusual name. You can’t act like it’s unusual but you should also not not acknowledge it at all you know?
What made it extra difficult was that Odd’s voice was like a tiny mouse. Like a shy tiny mouse. Which makes sense. Makes total sense that he’s not able to you know produce a ton of sound out of such a tiny mouth, but like I said his throat seemed normal. There wasn’t a big Adam’s apple or anything but the throat seemed normal and that’s where I think people’s voice box or whatever is. In the throat. It could be that his voice box is generating a regular voice but then it gets compressed coming out of the tiny mouth. I don’t know. But if that were the case I would imagine the extra sound has to go somewhere and that it might reverberate like crazy inside of Odd’s skull. And with a voice like a tiny mouse plus the crazy distorted reverb of your own voice it seems extra hard to talk.
But he talked just fine. Just super quiet. Again, awkward. You don’t want to always be like what was that Odd? So you just have to sometimes go with it whatever it was he said. Steven seemed like he could hear Odd just fine. Maybe because he spends more time with him? Right when they got there they seemed to start having these little side conversations and Bev and I just kind of stood and waited until they were done or picked fur off of each other like apes or something. I know apes do bugs off each other but you know what I mean. But what was cool what we really respected was that Odd wasn’t shy or anything. Bev and I said this to each other later in bed we commented on this and both noticed and agreed about Odd being just a forward and confident guy despite his tiny mouth and voice. It felt good to respect him for that.
We had some drinks right when they got there and Odd was a whiskey man. What he has to do to drink is he has a little straw sort of like what you stir coffee with. And he can just suck down a drink no problem. If he opened his mouth all the way he could get a regular straw in there but who wants to open their mouth to the max to do anything? I mean try it. Try opening your mouth as big as it will go. And then imagine a straw in there and trying to drink like that. So I think that’s why he used a tiny straw versus a regular straw even though how I would and have described his mouth is like only a straw could fit in terms of size.
Anyway, yeah the voice was tough but we had some good conversation during drinks. I guess Odd visits family in Norway a couple times a year. He was born in South Carolina but he still has a bunch of family there. Says it’s beautiful. Bev told Odd she wanted him to email her some places to go because we’ve been wanting to visit Scandinavia. When she said this Odd said something to Steven that we couldn’t hear and Steven kind of shook his head and looked down. But Bev and Odd they exchanged emails. We’ve been planning a trip to Mexico for months but I would also go to Scandinavia I guess. Not instead of Mexico but maybe as like our next trip after that. Bev and I didn’t talk about that but I should remember to do that. I don’t know if she was just being polite or what. It made me wonder if there is anyone else with tiny mouths or tiny facial features or tiny anythings in Odd’s family. If we went to Norway because of this would we have to meet Odd’s family? I mean if someone who is super polite is giving you advice about what to do in their family’s homeland there’s a good chance they’re going to be like hey my cousin or whatever can show you around really it’s no big deal she would love it. And then you have to. I’ll talk to Bev.
But dinner, that is where things got interesting. So Odd as you can imagine can’t just like grab a fork and knife and start housing a steak and all that. First of all he has his own set of utensils that he brings places. Custom made. I guess insurance paid for it which is cool and a little surprising since I couldn’t get insurance to pay for the thing with my foot, remember? Yeah the foot thing was nothing compared to living with a crazy tiny mouth but, I don’t know, it still was a thing for me to deal with you know? It’s better now so that’s good. But the utensils were really something. Just beautiful craftsmanship. A place in Ohio made them. Bev said she’d have to get the name for maybe some new silverware for us.
It was a fork and a spoon. Regular-sized handles or whatever it’s called where you hold it but then they tapered down into almost invisibly small ends. What he had to do was he would use the regular fork and knife — the ones we had for him — to cut a super small piece of food, we were eating chicken, so a super small piece of chicken like I’m talking like something you would give a bird. Then he would somehow poke it with his custom fork and then eat it. He did that for the chicken and vegetables. For the potatoes he just kind of smashed them up and then tiny-forked them. He didn’t have to use the spoon because we didn’t have soup. Either way it was all very impressive. I told Bev Odd should’ve been a surgeon with those hands. Just the dexterity to get the food on the fork and get the fork to the mouth. If my mouth was the size of a pea I’d be stabbing myself left and right with that little fork.
About halfway through dinner it became clear that Bev and I were going to finish way before Odd. I mean his bites were so small plus he kept stopping to say things to Steven. But Steven must’ve been prepared for the slow eating because he was going super slow too. It took us four hours. Four hours to eat. Yes. Hours. But it was fine. What were we going to do? It was nice to slow down a little and have some conversation even if you had to listen real hard to Odd and be quiet during his and Steven’s side conversations. Bev and I usually eat really fast. As you know. Just get down to business and eat. This was a nice reminder to take it easy.
So yeah dinner was good though. Real interesting. But as we were cleaning up Odd and I were doing a little chatting and out of the blue he goes is it hard having such a large belly? He talks so quiet I thought I misheard him so I just laughed a little. But he was just kind of staring at me and after a second of us not saying anything he leaned in close and put his tiny mouth to my ear. He smelled like garlic and gristle. I guess you can have bad breath no matter how small your mouth is. So he leans in real close and he says it seems like life would be difficult given my weight, is it hard having such a large belly? I didn’t know what to say. For some reason all I did was to pat my stomach and say haha yep she gets the job done alright. Which doesn’t really make sense. And then Steven asked Odd about something about work or something. I went on with the cleaning up and they left not that long after.
I didn’t really think about Odd’s question until the next day. And now I can’t stop.
So what I did was I called Steven yesterday and asked him if Odd was talking to him about me being fat or about Bev being fat. And Steven goes what are you talking about? So I told him what happened cleaning up and Steven said he’d ask Odd about it. Calling me fat is one thing but don’t call Bev fat. Bev is fat but don’t call her fat. Not after we did dinner and all that and Bev was asking about Norway and all that. And the utensils she complimented the craftsmanship and beauty of them which she one-hundred percent did not have to do.
Of course I haven’t told Bev yet because Bev will tell me to let it go but it will inevitably cause her to think about her own weight and how her own weight has grown tremendously in the past few years and that will inevitably make her think about going to Mexico and being on a beach and that will inevitably make her anxious about the trip and anxious about my attraction towards her which has not waned one bit not a single iota and I don’t want that for her or for me you know? But she hasn’t mentioned anything but that doesn’t mean that Odd didn’t say Bev what’s it like living with your belly to her and she’s just not saying anything because she knows I would not like it and maybe also does not want to make me think about my own recently ballooning weight.
But I haven’t heard back from Steven yet. I’m thinking if I don’t hear back from Steven I might go to their work and confront Odd. I just need to wrap it up. I’m not going to be a wild man or anything like that, I just need to wrap it up. It might just be Odd was genuinely curious about living as a large individual. I mean it’s good to understand people who are not the same as you. He more than anyone should understand that about understanding others who are different.
So I’ll just be like hey Odd it’s me from dinner, real quick, about my belly, one, when I said she gets the job done I didn’t mean a specific job I was just making conversation and two, were you trying to be a joker or were you trying to understand someone who is different than you in a genuine way because you felt us to be friends and felt comfortable asking what is otherwise an uncomfortable question and three, did you ask Bev about anything about living with my or Bev’s bellies?
I know where the office is since I go down by there on my route and sometimes I meet up with Steven. So I might do that. It’s a reasonable thing to get wrapped up. I just have to get it wrapped up. That’s all.
