“I like big butts and I cannot lie. You other brothers can’t deny, that when a girl walks in with an itty- bitty waist and a round thing in your face, you get sprung.”
I was in my fourth grade year of elementary school when I heard this song for the first time—and understood it.
All through the summer of 2006, I kept the question in the back of my mind. DO I like big butts? It was a conundrum, a paradox, a question of sorts I could never answer for myself. Fifth grade came, and went. The laborious schoolwork kept me on my toes, and the question was caged, for the moment.
I entered the sixth grade a different man. It was a fresh year, a fresh opportunity. The summer of 2007 was a wild one. Memories of warm sunshine, and cold Juicy-Juice pouches kept my spirits high through the first semester. Returning from Christmas break, with a fresh blanket of snow covering the middle school grounds, something had changed.
Was it me, or were the ladies more noticeable? I was confused and scared. I had never felt so alone.
The following summer could not have been more unlike the one from the the year before. I spent nearly the entirety of it hidden from the rest of humanity. Evil thoughts knocked on the back of my head. Apparitions visited me in my dreams, they sang in a haunting tone “Big butts, and you cannot lie. You cannot lie, Jacob. You LIKE big butts and you cannot lie!”
I often awoke in cold sweats yelling “You’re lying! It can’t be true!” My parents’ concern came swiftly. They demanded that I hang out with my friends once again, so I did. As I surrounded myself with close, understanding friends, the dreams began to subside.
Unfortunately the school year started. I could no longer spend the night at a friend’s house on any night I pleased. It became clear that the dreams would come back again, and with a fiery passion. I began meditating and began to focus on keeping the dreams at bay.
It was difficult, and at times ghouls managed to make a comment on butts in some form, but it worked for the most part.
All was generally jolly when fall was vanishing and winter began to take hold of the Arkansas landscape. Until one fatal weekend, a close friend of mine made a comment on the bosom of a fellow female classmate. Needless to say, I was stunned. I burst from the doors of his home and trudged through the perilous 2-inch-high snow all the way until I was at my front door. I ran straight to my room and had a dream that may have changed the course of my life forever.
In the dream, I was sitting alone on a park bench in the middle of a park that had blue grass in every direction, as far as the eye could see. A man, who seemed to come from thin air, had suddenly taken the empty spot to my right. He leaned in and said, “Jacob. There’s something you need to know.”
I continued to look at him in disbelief. The man was wearing a grey scarf that went up to his nose, so I couldn’t identify his face. The scarf sat on top of a large, black trench coat.
I looked into his familiar, brown eyes and asked, “Well, what is it?” He leaned back and took in the scenery around us.
“I like big butts, and I cannot lie.”
I was taken aback by the statement, and asked,”Why does that matter?”
He turned and looked at me for a while and finally said, “Because, I am YOU.”
He removed his scarf and showed the same face that I would see in a mirror. The ground below us shook, and I realized that it wasn’t blue grass, but denim. I was on top of a giant butt!
I awoke, scrambled to put shoes on, and went straight onto the roof. I yelled from the rooftop,”NEIGHBORS! AWAKEN!” My neighbors began exiting their houses in robes and pajamas. They began whispering to one another, in curiosity of the events that were soon to take place. I gave a moment of silence to build a dramatic suspense, and exclaimed,”I LIKE BIG BUTTS, AND I CAN. NOT. LIEEE!!”
My life has never since been the same. The moral of the story is that regardless of how you view your fellow human’s booty, you should always be true to yourself, and when you like big butts; you should not lie. I am now proud to know the truth in the statement that haunted me for much of my childhood.