Sunday, July 24, 2005 This diamond ring doesn't shine for me anymore
The neighborhood where I grew up was mostly free of other children, but I did have two friends. Their names were Kate and Katie, and they couldn't stand each other. Katie was there to slog through the creek with and to play games like Army, where she barked orders and I was puzzled. Kate was there for the Machiavellian nine-year-olds' scam where I would run away from home and hide in the woods behind her house, and she would "find" me once a reward was issued for my safe return. Then we were going to split the money.
The plan was flawless, except it was assinine, and I was out of the house for maybe two hours at most. My mother found me in the little junior survivalist nest I'd made by covering my sleeping bag with leaves to camoflague it. It was damp, because the gallon jug of tap water that I'd brought with me had begun to leak, and besides wetting the sleeping bag, it had also ruined the box of Total cereal that I'd intended to provide me with my RDA of vital nutrients while I waited for Kate to claim the reward.
History does not record what I would have spent a sudden scammed windfall on when I was nine. I was a child miser, and for years, I had a little pile of money from birthdays and petsitting just gathering dust in a savings account (ha ha! Aloha!). I imagine, though, that once I'd bought enough candy to bring on the di-uh-beet-ess, I might have turned my greedy little eye towards a Molly doll.
Molly was one of a line of dolls called American Girls that I understand has grown even more huge and ridiculous than it was when I was nine. The dolls had little story books about their adventures in different time periods in US history to go with them, and little historically correct costumes and accessories. The historical angle made them educational. Kate had Samantha, the prim victorian doll. Molly was the plucky World War Two era doll, who according to the storybooks hated most of the vegetables from the victory garden and knit blanket squares for our boys overseas.
Molly was like, a hundred damn dollars, with every outfit and book sold separately. I knew what she got up to because they had the books at the library, but that was as close as I ever got, because I knew better than to ask my mother for a hundred-dollar doll. Instead, I had Jenny, who was far less aristocratic. She had unfortunate bangs, and they became less fortunate still when I decided to cut them. There were no books about Jenny, and I think she had some merch, but it was minimal at best.
Still, I'd bring my poor peasant of a doll over to Kate's, where we would sit on her floor and sew doll clothes while listening to the oldies station. Kate's mother was a bit refined. She disapproved of my family without saying so, but telegraphed the signals clearly enough that a little girl who was so dense that she thought the running away scam would work could read them. Kate and I played in the woods behind her house nearly every day, but one day Kate got a tick on her from somewhere, and her mother decided that I and mine were responsible, so Kate wasn't allowed to play in our yard.
Kate rarely defied her mother, and had the annoying habit of telling her everything. After the tick incident, sewing doll clothes was one of the few options we had before us.
We listened to the same songs over and over and were always trying to scavenge scraps of fabric from our parents: All the stars were shining bright, and then he kissed me. My mom gave me her old purse, and I think we can use the lining.
We did OK. Despite my unfortunate Jenny-ish tendancies, I was willing to spend a lot of time in Samantha pursuits.
There were things about Kate's life and her family that baffled me, though. She wasn't allowed to watch certain TV shows, and while I related because of the hard line my own parents had once taken, I was puzzled because the rules seemed to be sent down at random. Young Indiana Jones was OK, but Blossom and the Fresh Prince weren't? Did they select for boringness on purpose?
She wasn't allowed to wear nail polish, either, unless it was this special kind that washed off when you washed your hands. It seemed like the dumbest idea in the world to me, but the Jenny within me revelled in painting it on and then letting it dry a little less than fully and peeling it off in little fingernail-shaped sheets. It was red, so we'd stick the dried polish on ourselves. Ugh, augh. I cut my arm. I cut my face. Oh, gross. That is the grossest thing I have ever seen.
What probably cemented me in Kate's mother's mind as an incorrigible Jenny with no shot at being Molly, let alone Samantha, was the night I stayed over. We sat in Kate's room and sewed, but then that got boring, so we painted our nails. That, too, failed to satisfy, so we painted the inside of a little cup, then pulled out the dried paint and stuck it on my arm so that it looked, in our minds, like a horrible gash, and came running out to tell her mother that I'd cut myself.
My own mother would have told us to quit fooling around and not to run around the house in our bare feet, because it would hurt the carpet, but Kate's mother went white and staggered for a second. It didn't even look real, but I suppose she was not used to the presence of a child who would fake horrible wounds for a joke, so the possibilty that we were just fooling around didn't occur to her.
We told her it was OK, that it wasn't real, and look, it came right off. I felt awful. I don't think she even yelled at us. She just gave sorrowful looks. This was so alien to me that I went quietly back to sewing under no protest.
We sewed by hand, laboriously, and kept our pins and needles in a little cushion that I think Kate had made herself. Everything was quiet, except for the oldies, until I got up for some reason and stepped right on the pincushion. A needle went into the bottom of my foot the wrong way, and Kate and I immediately started crying and screaming. She ran into the living room to get her mother. I came hopping down the hall behind her, afraid that I was going to get gangrene and have to get my foot amputated (this is what happens when all the books you give a child are educational in some way), but also embarrassed that Kate's mom would think I was trying to prank her again.
Eventually, her dad pulled the needle out with a pair of pliers, and after everyone was done freaking out, we went to sleep. I never got gangrene, and not too long after that, Kate's family moved to a classier neighborhood that was presumably free of ticks, and I mostly lost touch with her. Later, we ended up at the same highschool for a couple years, and she remained smart and good-hearted, but the Samantha and the Jenny sides of us had won out. I enjoyed smoking in my car during study hall, and Kate enjoyed Shakespeare and wearing hats. One of the last times I hung out with her, it was on a group date to homecoming. We all went to TGIFriday's, and you could tell which one was my boyfriend, because he ordered the Long Island iced tea, and on presenting his ID, received it. Jenny all the way. The other girls in their dresses and corsages were Samanthas, and looked horrified.
My character is what it is, and I don't think that I'm a particularly shiftless person, but imagine, if you will, the things I would be accomplishing, even now, for our boys overseas, if I'd had the historically correct influence of Molly. It breaks your heart, does it not? So, my darling internet, if you love me and you want me to grow up right, next time I come to you asking for something expensive, you better buy it for me. It is the only way I will avoid getting ticks in the future. posted by Frenzy Lohan | 7/24/2005 05:18:00 PM
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