The Unbearable Lameness of Being

You know how there's always one woman in every group who has to tell you way more than you want to know? When you were younger, she was always dating one of your best buddies and while she was tolerable when she was sober, get a couple of Seagram's Peach Coolers into her and she'll start discussing why she prefers uncircumcised men and how she always feels more connected to Gaia at certain times of the month. Well, my version of that chick was named Allie and she lived down the hall from me when I was at Tiger High in the 80s'.

One afternoon I was sitting in the hallway with my friend Anita waiting for some addled performance piece prop to dry (art and theatre school in the 80s', enough said...) when Allie came flouncing down the hall dressed like Botticelli's Primavera only with optional patchouli fumes and bitemarks on her collarbone. She stopped in front of us, made two attempts to speak and then squealed.

"Do you want the law students out here with mace again?" I asked.

"Noooooooo," she said, "Lissen lissen lissen! I was at this bonfire party? And there was this big burly biker guy? And I thought he was cute? And since you're supposed to have sex to help the crops? We went into the woods and started fooling around? And he was a girl! Isn't that cool? I'm a lesbian!"

And then she sauntered off, singing "I yam what I yam and I yam a lessssbeeeeyann!" while Anita made horrible faces at her back.

"That's cute. I wonder how many people she's told." Anita shook her head.

"I wonder how much of this she'll remember by the end of the day."

I felt a little bad for her. But in truth I was even more selfishly feeling a little bit sorry for myself. You see, up until that time, I'd done nothing that was rebellious or embarrassing enough to be fodder for my own deep dark secret in the years to come. At the age of nineteen I had already attained the respectability of a thirty-year-old deacon's wife. How sad.

"My hypothetical, socially maladjusted children are going to laugh at me." I looked mornfully at Anita and she glowered.

"You're being a big baby AND you've already got selective memory. Gah!" She started reading the ads on the newspaper underneath the prop.

"You mean the pot Belinda gave me after I stopped eating?"

"It made you very stupid. You told whatshername the voice coach lady she had the biggest feet you'd ever seen on a woman."

"Oh, crap. Did I really?"

"There now. Do you feel suitably ashamed?"

I thought about it for a moment.

"Not really. I mean, where's the scandal? Marijuana will probably be legal in a couple of years anyway."

Anita yawned and curled herself into an enviably perfect lotus postion. "You're just not wired to be debauched. You're going to be a goody two-shoes who fucks her husband silly and pretends she doesn't know what or where her clitoris is in front of the Friends of the Library Guild."

"That's not true!"

"Name one thing about yourself you haven't told me because you are honestly embarrassed."

"Okay. You know how I help with Rowan's coven's circles because I know how to play the drums?"

"Let me guess. You've never had a lesson in your life."

"Oh no. I've had years of lessons. But I've never gotten to play drums."

"So you were never in a marching band? That's actually a good thing"

"I was in band in both high school and that year in junior college in Mississippi."

"There was no music scholarship?"

"It was a full-ride payout, tuition, books, board, the whole schmeer."

"I give up. What's the problem?"

"I was embarrased about the straps and braces making my boobs look bigger so I played the cymbals from tenth grade on."

"Oh, the horrors. I don't know if I can be seen with you. I guess if we ever go to Senatobia, Mississippi, I'll have to pretend I don't know you."

"Anita, this is a very painful part of my past!"

"You're such a candyass. Wanna play dirty scrabble?"

"Freakin' A!"

"I rest my case."

copyright 2006 Jas Faulkner