I was a very fat kid. Like, I was a kid and a half. By first grade, I was the fattest kid in my class, a 75-pounder.

Sometime during grade school, I became fixated on Richard Simmons. I liked that he was such a screaming homo (for your reference, Richard Simmons to this DAY is not officially out) and I embraced his 1980s silliness. Plus, I thought if I danced around to my little black-and-white TV while he bounced around inside of it, I might get skinny.

At some point, I wrote him of my progress, and would you believe he wrote back? I didn't believe it myself, which is why I licked my finger and smeared his autograph, just to make sure it was real.