I placed an excessive amount of importance on my entrance into teen-hood and I elaborately planned a murder mystery party with my best friend at her house. It was all going as planned, OCD from an early age as I am, with one exception...I was relying on my family to drop off the birthday cake. All they had to do was drop it off, dessert would be served and then the mock killing would begin.
Unfortunately they were late, in the interim some unplanned fun broke out which was unfortunately halted by the arrival of the cake. Upon the presentation of the cake all the adults and my poor little brother gathered at the back of the living room and in sauntered a scrawny little man dressed like a stereotypical "nerd" (we are talking glasses with tape on the bridge and slicked hair parted in the middle, really the whole nine yards).
I like plans and structure I am not know for liking surprises and this experience throughly cemented that fact. With my friends seated around me a stranger who at the time I was not aware was a stripper asked "Who's Erika?" I was identified by the crowd, this is when the music appeared, supplied by the boom box toting parents, my best friend had fled into another part of the house at this point because she was terrified of a stranger seeing her in the rather revealing cocktail dress she was wearing and I was left alone, so to speak, with this man in front of a crowd of my peers who I had meticulously hand picked for this highly structured event.
"I hear you like to do the time warp"* he says to me. I am now standing behind the overstuffed chair I was previously sitting in and occasionally screaming out for my friend. Que the music and the stripping...he fained knowledge of the dance while poorly attempting to lure me out from behind the chair...rrrrrrip off come the velcro pants, "happy birthday"...snap snap snap the shirt pocket protector and all hit the floor...he completes the dance in not too revealing satin heart boxers and tosses his glasses to the ground.
I leave the room promptly and find a dark room in which to lock myself and calculate the cost of therapy over my lifetime. I am eventually lured out of the small upstairs sewing room by my friends and some additional unplanned fun ensues. In hindsight I suppose I can refer to this experience as my batmitzvah and the predictor of the my future as an adult woman. 'Today you are a woman'...
*I did like to do the time warp and frequently attended the Rocky Horror Picture Show, but not at my well planned party and not in front of a bunch of people who were laughing at me...
Unfortunately they were late, in the interim some unplanned fun broke out which was unfortunately halted by the arrival of the cake. Upon the presentation of the cake all the adults and my poor little brother gathered at the back of the living room and in sauntered a scrawny little man dressed like a stereotypical "nerd" (we are talking glasses with tape on the bridge and slicked hair parted in the middle, really the whole nine yards).
I like plans and structure I am not know for liking surprises and this experience throughly cemented that fact. With my friends seated around me a stranger who at the time I was not aware was a stripper asked "Who's Erika?" I was identified by the crowd, this is when the music appeared, supplied by the boom box toting parents, my best friend had fled into another part of the house at this point because she was terrified of a stranger seeing her in the rather revealing cocktail dress she was wearing and I was left alone, so to speak, with this man in front of a crowd of my peers who I had meticulously hand picked for this highly structured event.
"I hear you like to do the time warp"* he says to me. I am now standing behind the overstuffed chair I was previously sitting in and occasionally screaming out for my friend. Que the music and the stripping...he fained knowledge of the dance while poorly attempting to lure me out from behind the chair...rrrrrrip off come the velcro pants, "happy birthday"...snap snap snap the shirt pocket protector and all hit the floor...he completes the dance in not too revealing satin heart boxers and tosses his glasses to the ground.
I leave the room promptly and find a dark room in which to lock myself and calculate the cost of therapy over my lifetime. I am eventually lured out of the small upstairs sewing room by my friends and some additional unplanned fun ensues. In hindsight I suppose I can refer to this experience as my batmitzvah and the predictor of the my future as an adult woman. 'Today you are a woman'...
*I did like to do the time warp and frequently attended the Rocky Horror Picture Show, but not at my well planned party and not in front of a bunch of people who were laughing at me...
My 13th birthday