Thirty-one-year-old Patrick McPhee wiped away the mist on his bathroom mirror and sighed. The image staring back at him reminded him that, no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t reduce the bulk he carried around on his body. At five-feet-four-inches tall and one-hundred-ninety pounds he was as much a blob with legs as he was a human being. Fatty McPhee they called him in high school, when they were being polite that is. Otherwise it was just fat man.

The dime-sized hairy mole on his cheek did little to make him less ugly, either. The only saving grace about being so short, so fat, and so ugly was that when he was in high school he only occasionally got his ass kicked by the bullies. They just couldn’t be bothered to beat him up all the time.

Today was Patrick’s birthday, and coincidentally, the ten-year anniversary of his job at McCollum Consulting. Given the premium consulting firms placed on attractiveness he was thrilled to have the job. Of course, he was relegated to the office and never once stood in front of customers, but that was okay with him. At least he had a job and a well-paying job at that.

Patrick had a hard time understanding why he had ever been hired. Mitchell McCollum was the epitome of manliness—six-feet-two-inches tall, muscular, black hair, blue eyes and a sense of self-confidence like none other Patrick had ever seen. Perhaps it was, ironically, because of his appearance. Mitchell McCollum had often obliquely alluded to the fact that people like Patrick rarely ventured away from a sure thing. McCollum was right—Patrick was going nowhere except to his office.

And then, of course, there was the fact that Patrick would never talk about what happened in the closed room meetings at McCollum Consulting. Patrick didn’t know what happened in the closed door meetings and the truth was that he really didn’t care.

Patrick heaved another sigh, pulled on a white dress shirt, fastened a black tie around his neck and almost immediately began to sweat. That was another of his problems—he suffered from hyperhidrosis. He took one last look in the mirror and sighed. “You’re a real prize, aren’t you?”