“You’re plastic. Cold, shiny, hard plastic.”

I realized this morning that at thirty-nine years old and tired beyond belief, the size of the spider web I’ve walked through is unimportant. What is important is discovering that the spider is not in fact on me. Turns out the giant web was created by the most miniscule of spiders, and I was too exhausted even to girly scream.

Mean Girls

I realized yesterday that at thirty-nine years old there is still a very large section of my brain that is fourteen years old.

I’m tired, folks. I’m stressed out. I have a thousand and twelve things on my mind at any given second, and when something else gets thrown into the morass I can lose focus a bit.

Yesterday we’d had enough of being trapped in the house by the Climate Apocalypse, and Rich tossed me a few bills to take the kids out for an air-conditioned activity. It has literally been far too hot here to go to the playgrounds, we have no pool membership anywhere, and I am NOT taking Houdini here to a movie so he can twist his way out of his stroller while Livvie and I try to watch. So we went to the indoor, inflatable playground a couple of towns over (this would be a store front inside a sports complex that contains two giant bounce houses, and they charge eight bucks for unlimited hours of bouncing). Livvie had never been there. She was delighted. She bounded right into the action, and Jonas and I sat at a table so he could eat snacks while she played.

Forty-five minutes later she climbed out and told me her knee hurt. Turns out two of the rambunctious (read: normal) eight year old boys had come down hard on her when she was crawling through an inflated arch, and she’d jammed her knee. It was swelling and she couldn’t walk without limping heavily. The employee on the clock and I tested her for breaks, and then I told her we’d have to go for the day. She insisted she was fine and tried to walk back to the bounce house. Her leg gave way. So I told her we’d do this: we’d run to the pizza place, order a pizza for dinner, dash over to Walmart to get Tylenol and an ice pack, and then go pick up the pizza before heading home. She was cool with that idea.

When we got to Walmart my mind was swirling a bit. Wondering if I’d need to take her to the doctor. Wondering how to keep an energetic toddler from over-exerting that knee for the rest of the day. Wondering what to do about the fact that within moments of putting the kids back in the Ford Jonas had blossomed a lovely heat rash, regardless of the sunshade on the windshield. Sunshades do nothing when the air temp is so bad.

So I’d grabbed a Mickey ice patch set, and I was leaving the aisle containing the children’s pain relief medications, and I was deep in thought. I didn’t look, and I almost pushed us into a group of three sixteen year olds. Two girls and a boy. The boy said, “Whoa, fender bender!” which, you know, was cool with me. Then the girls made That Sound.

You know that sound.

The high pitched trilling giggle at someone’s expense? The calling card of every snotfaced bitch who has walked the planet since time began?

That sound.

And every fine hair on my face stood up, and my stomach twisted, and I was fourteen years old, trapped on my front porch while one girl from up the street held one arm, a boy from up the street held another arm, and his older sister kicked me in the stomach while both girls laughed.

The group kept walking, but then the two girls turned around, looked at my kids and me again, and shrilled the giggles again.

And I got pissed.

I’m talking Possibility of Ending up in Jail on Assault Charges Pissed.

If my kids hadn’t been with me I’d have gone after them, grabbed each bitch by the hair, and forced them to their knees while explaining calmly that I couldn’t wait for the day when their troubles outweighed their resources. When they had someone they cared about more than anything else and had no ability to really take that person’s pain away. When in the space of one twenty-four hour period so much input slammed into their brains that they had to create actual filing systems in their gray matter to prioritize. I wanted to let them know that they needed to enjoy the fuck out of their nubility NOW, because someday their tight little asses would be gone, their boobs would be drooping, and unless they were AS LUCKY AS I AM GODDAMMIT to have a mate who finds those changes attractive because of what caused them, they’d never get laid again unless they found some fucking CRACKHEAD who couldn’t see straight, because if you’re externally “ugly” while being internally ugly you can just give the fuck right up.

But I pushed my cart to the self-checkout, paid, and went to pick up our pizza.

My husband has absolutely no patience for the way I let people make me feel. Growing up he was teased for being too poor and too country, and he has never given one good fuck about what other people think of him.

There are many reasons for this, but he’s not a girl, for one.

Girls are mean, nasty, evil, and horrid. Do I KNOW the behavior is based on their own insecurities? Yep. So far my own daughter hasn’t experienced mocking and teasing (Teasing. What an innocuous word for this bullshit). She will, though. She’s a dork. I hope I can do a better job of teaching her how to maintain her self-esteem through it all. I hope I can get her to believe me that she’s smart, funny, and beautiful. Teach her that the words and behavior of others really DO mean nothing and only reflect badly on themselves.

She’s lucky in one respect though. She’s going to have a massive little brother to provide backup.

I have a message for Stephanie, Charlie, and Mary: I really hope your own children have never had to experience what you did to me.

I’m thirty-nine years old. My husband thinks I’m hot. I can rock a bikini even with a C-Section scar. I’m pretty fucking smart. I have a great sense of humor, even if it occasionally leads to plate tectonic jokes that cause said husband to roll his eyes. I have friends who make me laugh, and I make my friends laugh. I can change the oil in a car and change my own frigging tires. I know how to make a mean pot of jambalaya. Despite you all I was brave enough at fifteen to pick up a bass guitar and get up onstage in front of a town full of people for a Battle of the Bands. I could still play “Pour Some Sugar on Me” if you stuck a bass in my hands. Despite you all I am eager to make friends and learn from them.

And despite you all I finally understand that all of the things that made you laugh at me, beat on me, and mock me daily are what make me a cool-ass bitch.

So now, like yesterday, I’m going to put on my camo cargo pants, my camo tank top, and grab my plastic blaster and be that Princess in Pants my daughter asked me to be. And we’re going to have a rip-roaring, geeky good time.