When I was thirteen, I bought a new bathing suit.

It had shorts and a bra top. I thought I was awesome. In fact, I was a pale, pasty, ungainly ugly duckling who had already developed cellulite.

My (one) friend asked me to go to a water park with her. We went on a weekday during the evening, so no one would recognize me and blow her cover of being 'cool'.

We went on the tallest water slide the park had to offer. It had lots of gushing water streaming down it. The water gushed at a very high pressure.

She went down in her little teeny-weeny bikini. I saw her at the bottom, alive and laughing. The guy at the top of the water slide motioned for me to take off.

Water slides that are tall and have lots of gushing water can really be less of an experience and more of a sensation of having your skin pummelled by chlorinated water. If you're lucky, some of this chlorinated water will be snorkeled into your nasal cavity, and you will go blind with pain for about thirty seconds. In this case, thirty seconds was all it took to push my flabby, pale body down the slide.

When I arrived at the bottom, squirting water from my eyes and nose, my friend started shrieking. I opened my eyes to find my top had been lost in the guzzling, raging waters. It came down about two seconds later.

I covered my sad, adolescent breasts and stomach with my arms and ran to the nearest tree to put my top on. While I ran, crying and blushing, I looked at the lifeguard at the bottom of the slide. She was probably 18 or so.

She had the biggest look of disgust on her face I have ever seen.

No wonder I hate my body.