Crazy Virgo

I'm the May Queen, bitches

In 8th Grade I told the best lie I've ever told. I was in Catholic school at the time, and May Day was approaching - a very important religious holiday. On May Day in Catholic School you don't just give flowers to someone you like, or dance around a maypole. No no, that's for pagans. In Catholic school you crown a statue of the virgin Mary with flowers. May is her month. She gets the entire freaking month! It's ridiculous, yes, but it's doctrine, and she did carry and birth the Lord, and at that point in my life, that's all I knew. As a female in 8th Grade, placing the crown on Mary's head is a coveted honor. The chosen lady wears an amazing pastel colored dress, gets to lead the rosary (the ritual where you pray and count beads on a necklace), and forever be remembered in the annals of the yearbook as the May Queen. This was our Miss America pageant.  In order to get this position, all the 8th grade ladies had to write an essay. I never won or win anything. I wasn't athletically gifted. I wasn't artistic. But, I could write. Especially in fiction. This is where I was going shine. I had to win this contest. Not just because I wanted to be CrazyVirgo, May Queen, but because I knew my best friend thought she had it in the bag. She was one of those people that are natural winners. She won everything. MVP in basketball. Girlfriend of the cutest boy in 8th Grade. Most pull-ups in gym class. I loved her and hated her for this. It was awesome being best friends with a winner, until you wanted to win. Remember that scene in "Talledega Nights" when Cal Naughton, Jr. asks RIcky Bobby if he could win just this one time, and Ricky laughs? That's what I felt like most of the time. That's just how it was - she won, I congratulated her, and if I was lucky, I came in second. Well,Not. This. Time. 

I put so much thought into what would win this essay, my brain hurt. What would the judges - my 8th grade teachers - want to hear? What was going to beat the unbeatable opponent? My devotion to prayer? Nah. My lifetime commitment to Catholicism? Nah. And then, I had it - family tradition. This is Catholicism after all. Nothing matters more than family. Hmm.... my family... what could I write about? Nothing came to mind.... that was true. But, a little story started formulating in my brain. What if my Mom was May Queen, and her mother was May Queen, and her mother was May Queen? And my older sister? What if all the females in my family had been May Queens and it was my duty to keep the tradition alive?! That wasn't the case at all. But, damnit, it was going to be. What Catholic school teacher alive would keep a young, blossoming Catholic away from completing her role in her family and crowning Mary?

So, I did it. I wrote my essay about the female tradition of being May Queen in my family. I wrote about how I wanted to make my sister, mother, grandmother and great-grandmother proud. I wrote how I thought Mary would appreciate my desire to honor her and my mothers. I lied and lied and lied. The words flowed onto the paper like a Pulitzer Prize winning novella. Fiction came to me so naturally. And, guess what? I WON! I BEAT HER. The impossible became possible. The teachers panel commended me on my devotion to family, females and the Mother Mary. I wore an awfully heinous pastel pink dress, put on my most pious face, placed the crown of flowers on Marys head, lead that rosary like a pro and enjoyed my 30 minutes as Queen. I was smiling and laughing an evil laugh inside the whole time. "Ha ha you idiots! You believed me? A 14 year-old? Serves you right for letting me have this win.

I've evnjoyed that victory almost every day since. Did my lie hurt anyone? No. Do I lie everytime I want something that I think is unattainable? No. But I knew what it would take to win, and I went for it.

Happy May Day mofos.

Self-confessed, self-convicted murderer

It was a dark evening. As it normally always was on the abandoned one-lane roads of Northwest Missouri (that's Missour-ee, like Misery. NOT MissouRuh). I drove my 1989 4-door Ford Escort home from my grandparents farm where I'd just finished a Sunday evening dinner followed by an impromtu extemporaneous speaking engagement on why I was a vegetarian. It was always met with a chuckle from my hunter Grandfather, and an exasperated call to prayer from my god-fearing farmer's wife grandmother. Nevertheless,  I was 16 and I was taking a stand against the violent killings of chicken, cows, lamb, and every other adorable 4-legged creature that deserved a long, happy life. I cursed their old, unbudging ways as I barreled up and down the hilly asphalt roads between their rural house and mine. The roads weren't lit, save a lonely, flickering light pole every 1/2 mile. Justifying my actions and deep in thought about how wonderful it was that at such a young age I had found enlightenment, I didn't even notice when....

THUD.

SCREEEEECH.

HOOOOONK.

SHRIEK.

In the blink of an eye, a deer had leapt out of nowhere, met the hood of my car, and fallen off into a ditch on the side of the road. I threw my car in park. Realized what had just happened, and started sobbing. I got out of the car and peered around the front. My headlights shown as a spotlight to the crime scene. Oh Dear God Of Animals. The deer was dead. And, it was a baby deer. Bambi! My chest heaved and buckets of tears poured down my adolescent face. Strike me down! Take my life too! It was too much to bear. Just 16 years old, and already my life was over. Surely this was a punishable offense. 10, 15 years? Manslaughter. I had heard that word before and was pretty sure it meant plowing into a defenseless dear with my car and leaving it dead on the side of the road. Well, good bye world. I hope you liked having me in it. It's gonna be a long time before I'm back.

I got back in my car and did the only sensible thing. I turned myself in.

"Hello? 911. (sob sob sob) I just (sob)...I just (sob sob) I just murdered a deeeeeeeerrrrrrr."

Bless their hearts, The highway patrol took pity on me. They probably realized after I told them what a devoted vegetarian I was, that prison was no place for me. But, nevertheless, now I've got a rapsheet. 

WANTED: Two new parents

I love my parents. Really. As most daughters, I've had my run-ins with them, but overall, good parents. 

It was not always like this.

From age 10-15, I dreamed of having other parents. I harbored the notion that I was certainly adopted. And, my adopted parents were going to show up any day and a tender after school special moment would happen where I would run out the front door of my house and proclaim "there you are! I knew you'd come back for me." Much like every great adoption story, they would apologize and tell me they were just to young to take care of me, and I was conceived one late night after a Heart concert when they just weren't thinking, but now that they're both successful arts/musicians/writers and have a wonderful house in California, they wanted me back. It would be a hard, emotional decision for me. Much like Annie. But, I'd leave behind my plaid Catholic school uniforms and hand-me-downs and leave with them in their huge van with TVs inside. I would go live with my real parents and they would never ground me, and they would let me eat sugary cereal, and there would be a pool in the backyard, and I could watch TV all the time, and they would buy me a Nintendo and take me to Disneyland everyday. 

Every Sunday, when my parents would drag me and my sisters to church, I would pass the time wondering if my real parents were somewhere in that church. Maybe they had a private investigator there looking for me. In any case, I was so bored that I would ponder which of the other parents there were cooler than my parents. Which family would I rather live with? I was pretty sure every other family, outside of the weird ones that always sat in the front row at church, had a Nintendo but us. If I caught one of the other parents looking at me, I'd show them my adorable face, smile sweetly and put some obvious space between me and my parents so they'd know I wouldn't mind if they asked my parents after church if they could adopt me.

I'd get really mad at my Mom and threaten to leave and go find my real family. "Ok. Safe travels," she'd say.  The nerve! Well, clearly I wasn't her daughter. If I was, she'd be on the floor crying and begging me to stay. I'd pack my little pink suitcase with my favorite Halloween costumes and be on my way...down the block, because that's as far as I was allowed to go. I'd spend the day waiting for my parents to cruise by in their cool conversion van and pick me up. But, after waiting a 1/2 hour, it didn't happen, and I was hungry for a snack.

Needless today, my real parents never showed up, and no one at church wanted to adopt me. So, real parents, if you're out there.... you're late. But, if you're still interested, I'd love to take a road trip in your conversion van. And, of course I forgive you for your night of young love after that Heart concert. 

My first and last visit to a water park

I've never really liked public pools, lakes, even a shower of someone I don't know. In my youth, this was a problem. While all my friends were jumping off the diving board and flying down the slide into the city pool, I was standing along the side wondering how much chlorine was in the pool and how many kids had peed in it. My grandma and grandpa had a pontoon boat that I adored riding, but I could never bring myself to enjoy the murky green lake we motored on. I just wasn't sure what was hiding beneath the surface. Nessy? How was I to know. I was 7 years old. Is it the Virgo in me that makes me pause to consider the cleanliness of a shower that's foreign to me, the chemical content of a pool, or lake monsters? Yes, it could be. Or it could be one fateful trip to Oceans of Fun when I was 7 years old.

I remember it like it was yesterday. A sunny day in June. My mom urging me into the wave pool. My hesitation and general skepticism of the cleanliness and of course, chemical level of this large thousand gallon pool. My little sister dying to user her new floaties. My mom explaining to my sister that unless her big sister went with her, she wouldn't be going in the wave pool. Alright, alright fine, I'll go. I obliged for my sister's benefit and joined the mass of humanity bobbing up and down waiting to get thrown off their rafts by powerful, man-made waves. As we waited, floating, me doubting my decision with every passing second, something large tapped me on the back. I immediately turned around, expecting to find a lost child on a raft. Instead, I found a large TURD. A fucking piece of poop had hit me in the back. In what must have been the fastest sprint of my life, I grabbed my sister's hand and made haste for the side of the pool screaming the entire way.

And that, friends, is why I've never returned to a water park. Oh sure, it may be fun for you, and a total laugh as an adult to have lots of fruity cocktails in the sun, then lounge in a cold chemical bath, then coast drunk down the water slide, etc. But insert a large, lincoln log of a turd in there, and then decide how you feel.

I rest my case.