The 100th newsletter is on the horizon and it’s going to be a question & answer extravaganza. You can leave those questions right here.
I mentioned in a previous newsletter that I won a speech contest in seventh grade but I neglected to tell the story of what happened after.
First, I cannot emphasize enough how much I was not a kid who won things. Ever. I was a hyperactive B-average student prone to acting out scenes from movies when I got bored (I played all the parts). My ADHD meds would throw up their hands in my prefrontal cortex and be like, “We can only do so much.” The speech contest was the perfect outlet for me and I probably would have done well if my high school had forensics or debate team.
Anyway, so I win this thing and heading into lunch, I’m feeling pretty good— too good. I was a pre-teen Icarus and the invincible vibes took me too close to the sun.
My grade school was in an old building with weird quirks. In the cafeteria, a single light switch controlled both the boys and girls bathrooms. By middle school, it was known rule that we had to leave the light switch alone.
I was throwing away my lunch when a girl at a nearby table called me over. “Andrea, did you see who went into the bathroom? It was that kid.” She raised her eyebrows. “I dare you to turn the light out on him.”
That kid was a grade-A asshole, a constant tormenter, and I hated him. I couldn’t resist both the dare and the chance to get back at him. My poor impulse control took the wheel and not even Jesus could save me.
I flicked the light switch and dashed back to my seat. As I ran, I heard him yell out, “HEY!” followed by a splash— still don’t understand what he was doing to produce that sound effect, but when he came out of the bathroom, the kid had water all over him.
The girl who dared me tells him I did it (snitch number one!), the kid goes to the teacher in charge and rats me out (snitch number two!!), and then, in what is quite an excessive move on her part, the teacher sends me to the principal’s office (snitch number three!!!). Disgusting, I got triple snitched. I may not have been a “joy to have in class,” but I was also most definitely not a snitch either.
Our principal was a nun named Sister Catherine. I went to Catholic schools my entire educational career, kindergarten through college, and when it came to women of Roman Catholic religious orders, they either loved me or hated me. No middle ground. They found my spunk and vigor charming or they found my fidgeting and impulsivity irksome. Unfortunately for me, Sister Catherine was the latter.
I had never seen her so angry, all five-foot-nothing shaking with rage. And don’t forget, I’m 12, so everything awkward is funny. The best I could do to keep from laughing was twisting my face into a perplexed look.
She asked me why I did it and I couldn’t say anything other than “I don’t know” because I lacked the ability to put into words, “I was riding a dopamine high so intense, it felt like nothing could touch me, plus that kid is horrible to me all the time with no repercussion and it felt nice to have the upper hand for once in my life.”
“Andrea, you turned the light switch off on a boy while he was in the bathroom!” Sister Catherine was deadly serious and the next sentence out of her mouth drove me over the edge: “You have a little brother, you know how boys go to the bathroom!”
I coughed out a laugh and tried to cover it up with my hand, very unsuccessfully.
“You think this is funny?” Sister Catherine shook her head. “You are such a rude, unladylike, uncouth little girl.”
I was caught off guard by a word not on my vocabulary list. “Uncouth? What’s uncouth?”
“Look it up,” she spat out. “In fact, I want you to write a ten page essay for tomorrow on the differences between boys and girls.”
I protested that wasn’t fair, but she wouldn’t hear it. “Tomorrow. Ten pages. The differences between boys and girls.”
As I was leaving, she shook her head again. “I can’t believe you did this. And on your special day too.” To her, winning the speech was opportunity for me to finally become an upstanding citizen. Less than three hours later and I already fell from grace, except I never had any grace in the first place. I was always going to be exactly who I am.
Again, I’m 12, so this whole thing is hilarious. I go back to class and I’m like, “You’ll never BELIEVE what happened to me.” It’s around here that I realized how I could flip this around to my advantage. If Sister Catherine wanted a ten page paper on the differences on boys and girls— oh, she was going to get it.
After school, I settled into my older cousin’s computer room to write up this masterpiece. The first thing I did was set the font at Comic Sans, size 18, color purple. Hey, it wasn’t my fault there were no rules! In fact, pretty sure when Sister Catherine thought of this ten page assignment, it was ten handwritten pages, but this was the ‘90s, baby. We’re riding the information highway and typing up our essays on Microsoft Word. Get with the times, Sister!!
“The difference between boys and girls is that boys are allowed to be loud and make jokes while girls are expected to be ladylike and quiet like it’s the 1800s,” I wrote. I proceeded to list all the injustices I had endured as a girl that boys seemed to get off scot-free, like talking out in class and running down the hallway. Then, I took it further to a societal level. The differences between boys and girls is that girls have babies AND go to work. Boys just go to work! Girls have it so much harder!! I didn’t have the statistics on the gender wage gap back then but it would have been a nice touch.
I ended this feminist rant with a post-script: “P.S. If you’d like to know what’s the difference between boys and girls from a boy’s POV, I suggest asking for an essay from that kid.” When it was all done and printed out, the whole shebang came out to fifteen pages, five more than necessary. Above and beyond, some might say. A smart ass and a half, others might retort.
The next day, Sister Catherine was doing what she did every morning, wrangling with the morning rush of students in the hall. She used an old two-piece voice amplifier to try and install order. “Anthony, slow down. Hey, hey, hey, young lady, there’s no need to run. Robert, what did I tell you about gum?”
“Sister Catherine,” I said, holding out the thick stack of paper. On some level, I knew this could blow up right in my face, and I was ready to defend the essay until I died of a thousand paper cuts.
She wrinkled her nose at the paper in my hand. “What’s this?”
I paused for a second. She’s really old, I thought, maybe she’s confused. “It’s the paper you told me to write,” I said. She squinted at the gigantic purple bubble letters. “The differences between boys and girls.”
Sister Catherine made a face and shook her head. “I don’t want this, get it away from me.” She threw the essay into the nearest garbage can and told me to get to homeroom. I was left open mouthed in the hallway, too stunned to even protest. All that work, crumbled in a can.
Would Sister Catherine have remembered that punishment if I hadn’t done it? Knowing my luck, probably. I’m my own triumph and downfall all in the same package, all at the same time. Whenever I think I’m the one who’s getting ahead and outsmarting any situation, it typically ends in a garbage can.
“Summer”
You are the ice cream sandwich connoisseur of your generation.
Blessed are your floral shorteralls, your deeply pink fanny pack with travel-size lint roller just in case.
Level of splendiferous in your outfit: 200.
Types of invisible pain stemming from adolescent disasters in classrooms, locker rooms, & quite often Toyota Camrys: at least 10,000.
You are not a jigglypuff, not yet a wigglytuff.
Reporters & fathers call your generation “the worst.”
Which really means “queer kids who could go online & learn that queer doesn’t have to mean disaster.”
Or dead.
Instead, queer means, splendiferously, you.
& you means someone who knows that common flavors for ice cream sandwiches in Singapore include red bean, yam, & honeydew.
Your powers are great, are growing.
One day you will create an online personality quiz that also freshens the breath.
The next day you will tell your father, You were wrong to say that I had to change.
To make me promise I would. To make me promise.
& promise.
— Chen Chen
If you made it this far, here’s the secret: I’m a good writer, but I’m an even better smart ass. The links to more of my nonsense can be found below if you want to check those out. A cup of coffee would be greatly appreciated and you can do that here or here.
YKWIM #98: You are not a jigglypuff