I've always been the kind of person who lives to make jokes, and often time the best jokes come at the expense of others. I'll be the first to make fun of you for actually reading the Twilight"" series, for being the only person that openly still watches ""Boy Meets World"" re-runs (I mean, really?), and for still wearing capris or scrunchies in public.
I take the greatest pleasure, comparable to the feeling I have when I pee after watching a long movie while drinking a gigantic movie-theater diet coke, when I make a snide remark about my friend Heather's obsession with the color pink, ""Hannah Montana"" and princess crowns at the ripe old age of 22. I love to use the expression ""chin chillin'"" when I hang out with one friend who has a big-ass chin. It's not particularly clever, but it makes me laugh, and at the same time shrink down his huge egotistical head, which is beneficial since his chin takes up half of the room anyway.
Although teasing is one of my most prized past times, it's not something I cope with well. I am undoubtedly a hypocrite when it comes to teasing and teasing ME. This certain sensitivity developed when I was a youth in grammar school, forever tormented for being a soulless, freckled ginger. For years the boys teased me for my hair, running away from me at recess because each strand was a flame of red-hot fire. When I finally became immune to these fiery insults and began to appreciate my unique hair (mostly due to the popularity of an older girl with red hair), the boys started to call me ""tator-tot hands"" because of my short, stubby fingers. They came after me at recess taunting me with renditions of Jewel's hit song ""Hands.""
Looking back on that, I have to admit, this was pretty clever for a group of morons who wore ""RAW is WAR"" t-shirts and thought Stone Cold Steve Austin was the second coming of Christ. So much for religion class, Sister Canon.
To this day, I'm the first to become defensive at an ill-timed comment about my unhealthy fondness for winter caps with thick braids attached to the ears and a big ball atop the head. I am particularly vulnerable to tears if someone rips on the shape of my ass in leggings, my slight lisp that sometimes sneaks out, and my still cocktail wiener-sized hands, especially during a certain time of the
month.
So, you can imagine the rage burning inside the lining of my stomach when my friends accidentally let it slip they secretly had a drinking game based on my not-so-graceful dancing abilities. Apparently, I have no skill.
The game is based on three particular moves I ""allegedly"" repeat: I shake my hips, point at one of my girlfriends and do the come-hither finger point, then curve, with one of my chubby fingers. I then take that same fat finger and trace a line from my forehead to my bellybutton. If my friends see this, they must drink. If they see me doing this with my tongue out, they must drink twice. Apparently, this makes everyone get very drunk very fast. It's the speed quarters of dancing.
At first, this untimely discovery caused my cheeks to redden and my blood to boil; my chalk-white skin now matching my sun-dried tomato hair.
I love to dance and have never felt embarrassed about doing it in public. All of the sudden, I was extremely conscious of how special I must have looked when I shimmied at the Zumba dancing class I had attended at the SERF earlier that week.
But as I've gone from slightly awkward fourth grader to slightly awkward college senior, I've learned sometimes you have to join in on the laughter:make fun of yourself, your imperfections, your quirks, your chubby fingers and your inability to grind. Just make sure you dish it right back out and never let the fact that your friend once danced around the fifth floor of La Ciel entirely naked, never be forgotten.
Do you too have abnormally sausage-like fingers? If so, e-mail aaspencer@wisc.edu to join her support group.
