I once tried to be a model.

Here’s me, trying to be a model.

It’s kind of a shameful thing to admit. If I had actually become a model, that’d be one thing—not shameful a-tall. But since I did not become one, and instead failed fully in its pursuit, that’s another thing.

Even if you didn’t know, now you know. I’m telling you because I wrote about it for a website called xoJane. You can read it here. Or, if you’d prefer, you can read a less-censored version below.

In 2007 a mofo approached me in a mall in Florida and asked if I’d consider being a model. His name was Keith. (I used “Kevin” for xoJane because that’s a sneaky trick of the journalism trade. I used a pseudonym for myself too, another sneaky trick.) Keith looked like a mouse if mice were amphibious and untrustworthy. He scouted for Elite, the same agency America’s Next Top Model winners used to sign with.

I met with some Elite people, they told me I was too chunk, so I lost some weight and went to a camp for models in New York City that summer.

Here is a list to describe that experience.

• They brought us to a burger restaurant to prove that models were allowed to eat but then ONLY SERVED SLIDERS. Funk outta here with sliders, what’s a girl like me supposed to do with a slider?! I was the only one that went back for thirds which means I ate approximately one-eighth of a traditional hamburglar.
• They made me do yoga for the first time in my life and they filmed it. I’ve dedicated the past three years to learning how to bend over and touch my toes with straight legs, to give you an idea of how flexible I am not.
• Karlie Kloss gave us a runway walking demonstration. I felt like an old, ugly behemoth next to that nilla wafer. For real she waify as hell, I don’t reckon humans are even meant to be that waiflike. Hold on I just Googled it and waif actually means a homeless, helpless person. Isn’t waifiness supposed to be an enviable lady trait? What the heck. I like homes and being helped both.
• A nutritionist came in and told us to drink lukewarm water in the morning cause it gets shit moving. She weren’t all that genuine a person but I’ll be damned if she didn’t preach gospel. Try drinking 16 oz lukewarm water in the A.M. and tell me that don’t get your pooptubes straight crackin.
• I had a test photo shoot and they put me in eyebrows and a dress and hurt me real bad. Had to kneel on a wooden floor for about an hour. My knees weren’t meant for kneeling, that’s just not what they do.
• I walked around Central Park with 10-15 other girls while we all wore teeny tiny T-shirts. There’s no use in pretending I wasn’t the biggest of the bunch because I was. THAT SHIRT BARELY COVERED MY STICK-OUT RIB. Barely but.
• I starved myself in preparation for my test photo shoot (Keith made me) and after it was done I ate: 1) One full chicken 2) One pound of shoestring fries 3) A molten chocolate lava cake. I didn’t realize we weren’t getting our Kardinal Offishall measurements done until the next morning. Kardinal Offishall is a rapper who had a hit with Akon but I just used his name in place of the word “official.” Measurements are body measurements for boobs and butts etc., which Elite agents live and ride and die by.
• That next morning (after photo shoot + full chicken, before measurements), I was still on a rampage and demanded my first donut in months. The sprinkled donut I got was garbage and my saint of a sister went back and returned it for me not because I was a diva but because I couldn’t face the Dunkin Donuts employee. NYC DD employees are Steve Austin, so stone cold.

I gave up on the modeling career because my bones were too big. A lady named Karen knocked on my right hip and said “Nah ain’t gonna work, we prefer the type of hips that make childbirth more painful and difficult.” I said “That’s wassup” and now I’m not a model.

Also, if I’m keeping it real, I look like a tired cadaver in most photos and I’m prematurely wrinkled and overall I don’t have that charming/likable/outgoing a personality. These traits do not befit a model.

It took me nearly 10 years to share this story. (That means I’m 27 now, which means my birthday has come and gone. Please leave your wishes of good birthday fortune in the comments section below).