Witch Vet

Witch Vet

By Tess Lennon­Dorn

This is an excerpt from a short story about my struggles with weight as an eleven­year­old, centered around the time that my parents took me to an herbalist veterinarian for weight loss advice. For the full piece, please contact me.

I didn’t transition smoothly from a little kid to a big kid. As an eleven­year­old I would look around and see these girls and think that they were really nailing being eleven, ya know?

Like with the perfect dress, long blonde hair, skinny. Those fuckers. To this day whenever I see an eleven­year­old girl who’s nailing it I wanna be like, “Hey, fuck you!” And then I realize like “Okay, maybe my anger toward this small child is slightly misguided…slightly.”

Obviously the reason I hate them so much is because I was not one of those girls. Other girls were cute and I was chubby. I had these rolls that would sweat against each other and would make these fat kid sweat lines against my tee shirt. The button of my khakis was clinging on for dear life. I was always jammed into a sports bra from Galyan’s. It didn’t fit. It was hard to get on and then I just couldn’t get it off. It was too tight so it would cut into my side rolls so I just kind of looked like a stack of donuts.

I don’t know why I even wore a bra…like why did I bother? They’re not breasts at that point. There’s something there, but they’re not breasts. I wasn’t developing quicker; it was just that since I was already fat I guess the fat was like… “okay.” At the time, instead of breasts I had these fat boy boobs. You know, like the kind fat boys have at public pools Just these two cones hangin’ off...they don’t wear bras. And if you don’t have to cover up that shit, I don’t know why I had to cover up mine.

In the heat of my struggles as a tween, particularly with my weight, my parents decided to try and help. So one day we all went to see this man. I particularly remember them referring to him as a doctor before we got there. They wanted to take me to him to get advice about ways to manage my weight using natural medicine rather than diet pills. Minor detail, he treats dogs and cats, but with an herbalist spin. He’s kind of like a dog chiropractor. I seemed to be the only one who saw a wrinkle in the plan. Didn’t phase anyone else that they were seeking medical advice for their daughter from a witch vet. Vet, as in veterinarian. When questioned about this decision years later, my mom’s responses were always “He studied in China” and “We’re all mammals”.