Foot, Meet Mouth

When I was wee lass of thirteen, my parents decided it would be a hilarious joke to move in the middle of the school year.  From a bustling city centre to the COUNTRY mind you.  I went from doing drugs on the street to sitting with the cows, telling them how beautiful they were.  Messed up, I know, but the truth. 

I started at my new school on the wrong foot.  Not even on a foot, an arm, it was so wrong.  I was in grade seven, it was about my second or third day.  I was standing at the back of the field by myself, trying to not look conspicuous and embarrassed, when I noticed a HUGE group of grade seven and eights marching my way.  I pretended not to notice, but alas, they were honed in on me.  The leader of the group was a girl named J, one of the most popular girls in the 7-8 class.  She marched right up to me and asked,

"Did you call me a bitch?"

"Umm...no.  Why would I do that?  I don't even know you", I said, trying not to poo in my pants and trying to look tough.

"Well my friends here said you called me a bitch.  Are you calling them liars?"

Oh my god! What the hell do I say to that?  I am backed into a corner and I can see any notion of popularity I may have entertained slowly being deflated.  I uttered a meek 'No' and hoped that they would just go away.  She snickered and said, "Well, I think you called me a bitch, when YOU'RE the bitch.  We don't like city folk around here so why don't you just go back where you came from?"

I know right?  She didn't just say that.  Only she did, and my nightmare of being trapped in a hillbilly town of pitchforks and dirty slaughterhouses was coming true.  Who wants to get drunk and drive around in a pick up truck?  Oh, sign me up for that Bobby Sue. 

So, I spent the next year and a half hanging out with the 'losers'.  But you know what?  Losers are actually pretty fucking awesome people.  The 'loser' crowd is where everyone goes if they are too smart, play video games, and listen to good music.  We are shunned at school but our parties are AWESOME. 

It was around the middle of grade eight that people started noticing that maybe I wasn't such a 'loser' by their standards.  They were starting to catch on that all of us 'losers' might actually be kind of cool.  So quickly our groups merged and everyone was friends.  It was a really fun time.  We all partied together, and the popular girls learned how awesome the 'geeky' boys really were.  They make REALLY good boyfriends.  The popular boys found out they couldn't easily get into the loser girls' pants, but hey, we could all talk about video games together!

It was at this time that J and I became friends too.  I told her that I never called her a bitch and she said she knew that.  People like to make shit up.  I learned she was a really nice person and cared deeply about her friends.  

We were still shy and tentative friends when our grade eight graduation day came.  The whole class was bonded as one huge group of friends and there was such an aura of happy energy around all of us.  We posed for a class picture and headed into the church for the ceremony.  J and I happened to be sitting beside each other because of our last names.  We were just taking our seats when I noticed HIM.  He was like a god.  Older, wearing leather pants and a vest.  Chin length hair.  He was beautiful.  Obviously much older than me (much) but a girl can drool right?  And drool I did.  J asked me at one point who I kept turning around to look at and I told her that THE hottest man was sitting behind us and that I would DIE to kiss him (I was young and had NO experience with guys  I just SAID stuff like that, don't worry).  I kept turning back to glance at him the whole time, barely paying attention to when my name was called and I had to walk up to the stage to recieve my diploma.  

After the ceremony was over, I babbled on and on to J about the hottie.  On and on.  Finally she asked me to point him out to her among the multitude of people.  I pointed and explained what he was wearing, telling her he was honestly the foxiest man I had ever seen. 

She stood on tiptoe to see who I was pointing at.  A look of horror slowly crept over her face when she saw who I had been carrying on about.  A look of humiliation dawned on mine.  I already knew what she was going to say:

"That's disgusting Katherine! That's my father!"

Thankfully we stayed friends.  Regrettably, I never, EVER lived that one down.