Sometimes I feel like the main culprit of word vomit is not, in fact, Lindsay Lohan in "Mean Girls". My life experiences, and especially every experience involving a junior high Catholic school mixer, tell me that
males are the kings of word vomit. They say whatever pops into their small brains and expel it into the universe. They make some inane joke about you being the Treasurer of the Itty Bitty Titty Comittee, and think everyone will laugh then move on with their lives. Little do they they know, you're going to be buying about 17- years-worth of Victoria's Secret Bombshell Push- up bras so thick they might as well be bullet proof.
I'm not saying men yield the ultimate power of self-esteem destruction, girls can do just as much damage. The difference is this: girls will calculate the most soul- crushing remark in order to psychologically scar you well into your 20s. Girls will sit atop their PB teen bedsheets for hours rehearsing the perfect remark about my bra size, because they know it could possibly drive me to a botched plastic surgery in the future. Men, on the other hand, just throw out some caveman- esque remark to get a laugh from their ridiculous, Hurley- wearing friends.
We shouldn't take what guys say seriously, because that's how they socialize. The pinnacle of male humor is calling your best friend a homosexual for wearing striped shorts. They think they're Louis C.K. when a joke like that lands.
And if there was an Olympics for laughing at yourself, I could definitely win gold. Growing up, I was always the goofy best friend of some hot commodity (probably because my mom wouldn't buy me a goddamn hair straightener until I was 15 and doomed me to a life of junior high obscurity). My best friend would go make-out in the bushes at a local park with some St. Joe's Mustang League baseball player, while I sat on the swing set with his friends joking around. I learned how to be made fun of like one of the guys, and how to fire a joke about their bowl- shaped haircut right back. I eventually figured out that these guys were making fun of my flip phone because they knew I could take it and they considered me their friend. They knew if they made fun of my amazing bejeweled flip phone,
I would say their girlfriend looks like a cross-eyed horse.
However, I am still a girl. There are still things guys have said to me that I have not forgot and I will never forget. I will be lying on a psychiatrist's couch in 30 years still talking about my 7th grade crush.
Here are two things boys have said to me that will either drive me to botched plastic surgery or be the last thing I utter on my deathbed.
2) The Pool Party Self Esteem Massacre of 2007
It was an 8th grade graduation party, so already the stakes were high. It was at my friend Casey's new pool, so basically
this was the Academy Awards of graduation parties. If you've ever attended one of Casey's pool parties, you know what I mean. I had purchased a new Target bathing suit just for the occasion, and the braces were officially off. If you're following this imagery, I'm basically the St. Paul the Apostle version of Jessica Alba.
The sun had set and we were all swimming around an dunking each other. Because nothing says carefree fun quite like a near-drowning. But I digress, I popped out of the water to dunk someone and a boy named Joe screeched a warning at the person I was going to dunk.
"Watch out for Aly!" he said. Aly was my best friend's name who was also small and blonde. "It's Emma you idiot", I said as I whipped around. I had no idea the horrific turn this conversation was about to take. "I should've known," laughed Joe.
"Aly doesn't have that big forehead!"
My world start spiraling out of control, right there next to that brand new pool volleyball net. Picture the image of Alice falling down the rabbit hole, except Alice is wearing a tribal print Target bathing suit.
I already had so many body issues I had to worry about on a daily basis. I have tiny stubby T-Rex arms, and muscly thighs from years of cheerleading. My Asian manicurist told me I had the eyebrows of an Italian man, and the fingers of an overweight baby.
My forehead too?! I don't even have time to add this to the list, and it had never even occurred to me before. "Was everyone talking about my alien-sized fivehead behind my back?" I thought frantically.
By the time the party had ended I was sitting on the edge of the pool trying to push my wet hair over my face until I looked like the girl from The Ring.
This comment has lead me to experiment with every form of bang in existence throughout the rest of my life, some more worthy than others. From the straight- across to the side-swept, this pool party was always in the back of my mind. I'm more comfortable with my forehead how, especially after Hayden Panetierre's rise to fame. But sometimes I still have nightmares my friends are all having secret parties where they play "Pin the Fivehead on the Emma".
^One of my more unfortunate experiments in the heavy bang department. Note Abercrombie zip-up and Coach jewelry. It's unfortunate my hair could not get on board at the time when I was really finding myself through fashion.
1)
"Call Me When You're Forty"
As a 20- year old girl with a chest about the same size as Tee Lo's, it's weird to think my biggest insecurity is not located on my body. My biggest insecurity is probably sitting in a big house in Joliet right now, watching a rerun of the "New Adventures of Old Christine" and
ironing my brother's underwear.
"Hi, my name is Emma and I have a hot mom." Whew, it's taken me years of therapy to be able to get that off my chest (and by therapy I mean eating McDonald's when emotionally vulnerable). My mom was a tiny ASU party girl who danced professionally, became a collegiate cheerleading coach, and opened her own modeling agency where she occasionally took fabulous professional photographs of herself.
Another fun fact about my mom, she looks absolutely nothing like me. Tan, brunette, and perfectly proportioned in every way,
strangers often thought she was my young, ethnically ambiguous nanny. If I had to pinpoint the one thing I have been teased the most for my life, it is my mom's facial symmetry and cup size. When I was younger I shut out the haters with the totally realistic belief that I was going to hit puberty and become Cindi Tyler 2.0. Prepare to be shocked: this did not happen, because the distribution of your genetics alleles does not change when you enter womanhood.
But I digress,
I have always been able to laugh off jokes about my mom, especially from my guy friends. Mostly because they were unintelligent drivel about them one day becoming my stepdad. Yeah right, like the illustrious Cindi Tyler is going to leave her husband for a
14-year-old boy with cystic acne and a puka shell necklace. However, one day I just couldn't laugh it off.
It was in between class periods at St. Paul the Apostle grade school (conveniently located next to a McDonald's), and I had a feeling something was about to go down. I was in 7th grade and had a massive crush on a boy in my class. As per usual, I told one friend at the beginning of the day at the cubbies, and
by the 6th period Living Rosary practice in church, everyone knew. After practice, I was back hanging in the hallways with my crew of bad bitches in plaid skirts. He approached with his friends; this was big. My Disney Channel -brainwashed mind went crazy. "He's going to ask me to the St. Joe's dance," I thought frantically.
"Play it cool and buy a new denim skirt/ Hollister flip flops this weekend," I assured myself in my head.
But instead of asking me and all my friends to go see "Night at the Museum with his friends, he simply cruised by, laughed, and uttered these fatal words:
"Hey Emma, call me when you're forty."
I laughed it off. I had to. I was the cool, funny girl with no hair straightener.
I wasn't going to let my chill rep go to pieces because of this little prick in a polo. I laughed so hard and it was so clearly fake, I looked like Cruella de Vil if she had finally accomplished mass murdering the spotty offspring of Pongo and Perdita.
I went home absolutely destroyed, and I don't think I ever told my mom.
I looked in the mirror and wondered why my genetics/Charles Darwin had decided to metaphorically dropkick me. It was the first time someone had made a joke about about my mom that made me feel like an ugly troll doll in comparison. Was every guy I ever liked going to wish I was my mom?
Was my life going to turn into the Maroon 5 "She Will Be Loved" music video?! I did what I always did to make myself feel better(besides McFlurry consumption), I watched T.V. I actually think I watched something weird on E! Entertainment with Giuliana Ranic when she was still Giuliana DePandi. I eventually dusted myself off, so my mom wouldn't find me.
I eventually realized that I know more about WWII than my entire class, and my mom once seriously asked how the Japanese could have bombed Pearl Harbor from all the way across the ocean. I also looked in the mirror again, and realized that I may be flat-chested, but my butt is still pretty great
. I realized nobody is perfect, and that this kid was a douche who didn't wash his gym clothes. After all, he was just trying to be funny. But I swear to God and St. Paul himself, if I ever see him again I will walk up to him, kick him in the crotch, and
demand to be immediately reimbursed for all the self tanner I have bought over the years while attempting to be my olive-skinned mother.
