I Beat Up a Boy for My Own Betterment
Everything came to a head. I fought back. Literally.
No one had any idea what to do with me when I was nine years old. That included me.
I was awkward as hell and, more than anything, I just wanted to be less so.
I was goofy looking. I had a serious overbite and was pretty tall and gangly. I had no idea how to pull off this magnificent craptastic array of physical attributes.
Adding to the mess was that I had super weird, coarse, Italian girl hair. If I wanted it to go right, it went left. If I wanted to go up, it went down.
It was like every follicle was possessed by a rogue Gilda Radner character.
There was a girl at school named Stefanie. With an F. Of course. I would spend hours in front of the mirror trying to emulate her hair. It was perfect. She was perfect. The result was never what I wanted it to be. There may have been jokes that ensued about fingers in light sockets.
Elementary school playgrounds are a hotbed of self-esteem ruining events for kids.
The problem was never really the girls. In fifth grade, girls really don’t know how to be bitchy yet. They kind of blow you off but, if you were willing to come over to their house and you brought a can of Pringles, you were pretty much going to have a friend.
Still, it’s a really sad existence when you have to bribe people to be your friend with potato chips.
It worked out, though. I was especially joyous when I got an invitation to go hang out with Stefanie with the Good Hair one afternoon. She let me wear a couple of her bangle bracelets after that. It didn’t make me suddenly cool. We never hung out again until 25 years later when we had to plan our high school reunion together. She still has perfect hair. I don’t like her.
But, the boys. The boys were ruthless. I didn’t pay any of them much attention except for one brand new student who came to our school mid-year. A cool skater dude named Matt. Matt never really picked on me but merely tolerated my…
