Friday, October 28, 2005
It was October 1981. My parents had entered me and my brother in a Halloween costume contest at the library. My brother decided he wanted to one of the Three Musketeers, which I told him was pretty dumb since he was missing the two other Musketeers. He made his costume out of a garbage bag, an old belt, and a cowboy hat he spray-painted black and taped up on one side with feathers he pulled off a dead bluejay in our backyard glued together to create a plume. My mother had made me a costume - I was Little Miss Muffet. I had a pretty blue dress and a bonnet, and a pillow on a string that had a toy spider glued on it (what the hell is a "tuffet" anyway?), and I carried a bowl and spoon (for curds and whey I suppose).
My parents forgot to tell me that we'd have to walk across the stage and be judged in our costumes. It was a contest after all. I was painfully shy as a child (which I eventually grew out of) and don't like to be touched by strangers (which I have yet to outgrow). When the librarian, I'll call her Miss B, grabbed me by the hand and tried to drag me onto the stage, squealing "but you're so PRECIOUS, honey!" I totally freaked out and kicked her, HARD, in the shin. By the other accounts I've gathered, Miss B was actually a wonderful lady, but my actions that day turned her into my lifelong enemy. I was excused from the contest and my parents were asked to take me home, and my registrations for the summer reading program for the next 3 years were mysteriously lost.
But Miss B's vendetta against me did not end there. Over the years, it played out like this: (1) Miss B chastised me for checking out V.C. Andrews books. She'd whisper loudly enough so half the library could hear... "well now, why would you want to check out this dirty book...don't you know it's about incest?? do you find incest interesting?" (2) Miss B chastised me for checking out Clue the Movie and Grease twice - "If you have this out all the time why don't you buy your own copy? No one else will ever get to watch these if you keep this up!" (3) She kicked me out of the library when I was in high school for "making out" with my boyfriend (he kissed me on the cheek), and the one that pissed me off the most is (4) I was a high school band geek. Anyone who was a high school band geek remembers being forced to sell bizarre shit for your band booster fundraisers. One year we had to sell summer sausage and cheese balls. Who the hell is gonna buy that (other than my relatives, who were obligated by our blood bond to support me)? So I hit the library to see if anyone would be interested...and Miss B, upon seeing me with my fundraiser booklet in hand, immediately posted a NO SOLICITING sign at the checkout counter. I walked up to her and asked "So when the hell do you plan to retire already?" Although she was an ancient beast all the way back in 1981 when our saga started, she waited until I graduated high school to retire, probably just to spite me, and to make sure I never, ever made it back into the summer reading program. So the lesson here is that you shouldn't kick old ladies, because they never forgive and forget. Happy Halloween!
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