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14 November 2008

Steel Magnolias (or my alternate title: You'll Never Believe This Because I Look Like I Grew Up In Church)

A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away... or you know, back when I was 13, I thought I was bad.

I found some well-priced steel-toe combat boots that I liked to wear paired with a short teal and white floral print rayon mini skirt. Because nothing says "mean" like combat boots and rayon. I would iron all the wrinkles out of my pretty skirt, lace up my knee-high black (tough) boots and go for a walk around the neighborhood. Sometimes I packed my butterfly knife that I found somewhere one time.

(Criminal disposal maybe?)(Which of course made me feel even more indestructible and above the law.)

And then there were times I packed my brass knuckles.

I was tough. And edgy.

Everything about me said, "Do not mess with this girl. She will cut you."

Except for the floral rayon.

One day, this thug girl found out I had kissed her boyfriend. In short, she had beef with me. So she confronted me in the street. In front of her little friends minions. She cussed me lower than a snake's belly and then she slapped me in the face.

Hard.

I was put in my place. Effective immediately.

I turned to make my walk of shame back home, hot tears rolling down my face, my heart pounding in my chest and throat, telling myself lies, like, if I had had my brass knuckles, she wouldn'tna handled me like that. I'da taken her down.

I think the case had already been solved though, who the real gangsta was.

I got in front of my house(finally). But not forgetting about my hard thuggish image, with a final jolt of gall, I turned back to where she was still standing (and laughing)(at the far end of the street) and I screamed some profanity and called her some classy names and then I turned and ran into my house.

Because I was bad.

True story.

**Edited to add: After reading this again, it sounds as though I was your regular run-of-the-mill bully. This was absolutely not the case. This whole story took place on weekend visitation at my moms - hence, not my hometown - AND WAS AN ISOLATED INCIDENT! I tried to "be somebody else" over there. Or at least give it a valiant effort. Truth is, I was not hard at all. (As evidenced here.) I was just really into this dude that was a straight thug and all I did was DRESS THE PART. The end. I was only trying to be what I thought he wanted. Inside, and outside evidently, I was just a big softie. And I prefer me like that.

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Gwendolyn said...

Ha! You were such a rebel! LOL.

I was a mousy little thing that would have run away crying if someone even THOUGHT about yelling at me, so I would have been totally intimidated by the boots. :o)

Jodie | Velour said...

Well it's nice to know SOMEBODY would've believed my sham. :)

bren j. said...

Glad you've come a long way since then. I don't think my Mom would've let me play with you.

But for the record, I totally would've stayed and beat the tar outta that girl. Or at least went down trying. People didn't mess with me much.

Anonymous said...

cute story...i poured milk on someones head in the 7th grade!! her name was tina beck and she used to beat me up all the time, one day i had had enouh so when she started pushing me around in th lunch room, i dumped my milk over her head and told her to never touch me again...she never did. go figure??!!?? and of course i'm the one who got in trouble!! love your blog btw..adding you to my blog roll...stop by some time!! hugs and prayers...

Unknown said...

So, you WERE one of those "mean girls." I knew there was a reason I liked you. I was, regretfully, one too.

Anonymous said...

Hilarious! I think I had the same boots. My mom wouldn't let me wear them with miniskirts, though, and I wasn't rebellious enough to do it anyway. :)

Tonja said...

you should wear those boots while you knit :)
j/k I just had that image and thought it was funny. I like that you've let the softie out and let go of the "bad girl" image.

Mama to da Drama said...

I wanna know why this story never came out last night when ya'll were laughing at Tante D and [her] Jon Bon Jovi boots! hahahahahahahahaha!

Anonymous said...

You know, we talked about the whole combat boots with mini skirts thing yesterday!! My daughter wants fuzzy boots (really, really ugly ones in my opinion) and I wouldn't let her get them, so my mom told her to ask me about the combat boots and dresses I used to wear...its funny you should blog about this. Oh yeah, no fuzzy boots for her.

susanna said...

I never tried the combat boots with skirts. I did use fake tattooes from cracker jack boxes, however. I feel your teenage angst. Glad you made it through. :) Sue (tsg)