Being weird gets cooler as you get older. There's definitely a correlation, but I'll spare you from seeing a graph I've drawn. So - while her weirdness was cool and totally worked for her, said weirdness rubbed off on me and made me stick out like a sore thumb until high school. I was doomed to popularity fail, and here's why:
First, I went to Cheley Camps in Colorado for 2 summers when I was younger. It made me obsessed with hiking and being an outdoorsman. When I went back to school in the fall, I wasn't ready to give it up. I decided I wanted to wear my hiking boots and military-grade hiking pack to school, and to my mother this was totally acceptable.
Everyone else's reaction - who is this weirdo nature girl? I bet she has granola filling up her pockets and never shaves her legs. Why would she wear a backpack that big? And did she seriously get her initials monogrammed on it?
Yes, folks, she did. It was slightly smaller, and I must stress the slightly, than this.
Second, I was forced to take art classes. They were fun, and naturally my art was monumental and that which legend is made of. But I liked it so much that I decided I wanted to take clay with me to school and play with it during classes. So I would reach into my enormous backpack and pull out an industrial size bag of clay and start molding things. At this point, you should be seriously concerned. Below? An unfired clay blob.
Yep. This is really what I was carrying around in my pack.
Third, my mother's ideas have always been, well, a little irregular at best. I'm not saying this is a bad thing, she could definitely make you look at things from a different perspective. But she'd take something seemingly normal, and then throw a strange idea at it to see if it would stick. A Picasso of ideas, if you will. This particular trait was especially disadvantageous to me during my years at Stephen F. Austin middle school, home of the Bears.
Example, mom decides it's a great idea for me to run for student council.
I absolutely do not want to do it.
Oh yeah? Well too bad, Mary Catherine. I'm told I'm doing it - because it will be a great thing to put on my application to colleges, she says. Yes, this will be the start of a very long and promising political career. My silent form of rebellion was to not write a speech, which we were required to do in order to run. So naturally, my mom writes a speech and forces it upon me. And in continuance of my rebellion, I refuse to even look at it until I get to the podium to speak.
My opponent's speech sounded something like this....
"Hello, I'm Susie Suzerton and I would like you to elect me to student council. I'm a straight A student, I play sports, and I'm involved in everything ever. Thank you."
Yay! Good job Susie, what a perfectly normal thing to say! Way to completely avoid any sort of ridicule from your peers!
Then, with my face flaming red-hot in embarrassment, I suddenly realize that now it's time for me to get up and speak. Then it hits me: Hey! I don't have to get up and speak, I can just sit here and ignore the fact that my mom wants me to run.
Then, my ingenious train of thought was interrupted.
"MARY STERLING!!" the teacher calls out with shocking ferocity. Why do you hate me, fate? I would later find out that my mom actually called Mrs. Whatshername and told her to make sure she called me - thereby ensuring that her brilliant speech would be read. I slowly, painfully, reach into my giant hiking pack and pull up a wadded piece of paper containing the speech my mother has written me.
It probably looked brown and disgusting, having been stored in such close proximity to my clay. I get up, mumble a fake cough into my hand, and begin to read.
"My name is Mary, and I am an Austin Bear. I think it's really neat that I'm attending Stephen F. Austin middle school, because in my former life I was a bear, just like I'm an Austin Bear now. So I know what bears like, and if you vote for me I'll make sure that all of your ideas and concerns are fairly and equally represented. My mom also went to Austin, so if you vote for me, you should know that I have a proud family history of attending this school, and I will continue to uphold the values of our predecessors."
I stared at the piece of paper in awe, desperately trying not to faint. Slowly, I realized the damage was done - and if I acted quickly, I might be able get to my seat before losing consciousness.
(me + bear = ONE)
I then waded through a sea of snorts and giggles back to my seat. I scarcely even remembered what I had spoken, but I knew it was awful.
Terrible, even life-ending. I was shaking in my LL Bean wrinkle-resistant double L chino shorts.
The aftermath of this ridiculous garbage was that everyone, in what I'm sure was an entirely Christian school, thought I believed in reincarnation - even though I went to an Episcopal church every Sunday. I had to squash rumors of this for years, even through high school.
At last, we come to the final reason of popularity fail: strange pets.
My mom worked at the Discovery Center when I was younger, and it was awesome. I was allowed to glimpse sneak peaks at the dinosaur exhibits before they even opened, see planetarium shows by myself, and explore the broad reaches of many exciting scientific mediums after-hours. No waiting! The Discovery Center is located next to a park where there was a pond, and where there's a pond, there are of course ducks. I had several ducks over the years - but my first two were Sophie and Atticus.
They were amazing until they unexpectedly flew away when they grew up. Bastards. I fed them, cared for them, put them in a wading pool out back and used to watch them swim for hours. I quickly learned I could not play with them IN the little pool, because, well, ducks are messy, messy creatures - and have absolutely no regard for when or where they release their bowels. I did, however, love to relocate them to my bath tub - but of course would adhere to the no co-habitation rule. Many people came over to play with my ducks, dog, cats, and the host of other creatures I played mom to.
Naturally, I had to adopt every creature I came across - being the outdoorsman I was. This meant that in addition to all of the normal pets one can own, I also had a bat, lizards, cottontail bunnies, horned toads, about 40 turtles and at one point - a raccoon. I thought I was way cool for having a veritable zoo of animals, but this too came back to bite me later.
I distinctly remember being in French class my Sophomore year of high school, where thankfully I had recovered from some of my nerdiness because my friends from private school had finally been forced into the public school system - and they were accustomed to my unusual habits.
Chris Morton, a guy I'd been in school with since kindergarten, sat down in his usual seat next to me in the back. He had taken his part in the non-appreciation of my weirdness, but by the time high school rolled around we got along well. As was our routine habit, I offered him my juniper breeze spray from bath and body works so that he could cover the odor of his usual lunchtime activities. Out of no where, he asks me a random question about the past.
Chris: Hey Mary, is it true that you used to bathe with your ducks?
Me: WHAT?! Where did you hear that??
Chris: I dunno, everyone.
Me: Dude, no. NO. Jesus, no wonder everyone thinks I'm so weird.
Chris: I didn't think so, I was just asking.
Me: Hey thanks!
Chris: Do you have any chips?
This is a representation of what I'm sure everyone thought. Me and my duck, about to take a bath.
Chris, thank you. I owe you a high five which I fully intend to deliver in the hereafter. You were awesome.
At this point in life I've totally accepted and am quite fond of all levels of my strangeness. And if you're reading this, guess what? You are too, so just sit back and enjoy the majestic filth that is my blog.
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