Self-Inflicted Wounds: Heartwarming Tales of Epic Humiliation (30 page)

7
Which is hard to do for a second-grader. Mordancy is a pretty difficult concept to
grasp at seven, or any age for that matter. I doff my hat to them.

8
And clearly is some shit I haven’t been able to let go.

1
My problems are not real problems.

2
See Judy Blume’s infamous “We must . . . we must . . .” borderline limerick-couplet.

3
Also not much sex, but hey, something’s gotta give.

4
It’s all about proportion. I was a big kid, so even my starter rack dwarfed the efforts
of others. My breasts were the Manute Bol of boobs: maybe not the best compared to
others, but most definitely the biggest.

5
I know this is well-trodden ground, but when you are a kid, your particular crisis
is the worst thing that has ever happened to anyone in the world ever. The fact that
plenty of women everywhere seemed to be managing their boobs without much difficulty
was completely lost on me. I was in torment. Torment!

6
Well, my mom would drop little sugar nuggets like that. My dad had more of a “fuck
’em if they can’t take a joke” approach. Which was pretty inappropriate language at
the time, but still, surprisingly effective.

7
Seriously not her real name, but somehow it just oozes mean girl, doesn’t it?

1
 This led to a dramatic riddle for me as a child. I loved to eat butter. My mother
would open the butter compartment to find two child-sized finger marks dug ferally
through the stick, as if a tiny werewolf had mounted a dairy attack. I would often
steal sticks out of the fridge for furtive ingestion later; I was hooked. But this
was not even real butter, but soy margarine, a terrible trick played on me by my parents
and the world at large. The first time I had real dairy butter, I was like a methadone
addict getting a first taste of black tar heroin. They found me in a glistening heap,
reeking like a dirty theater lobby popcorn machine, weeping quietly for redemption.

2
This was like telling a panhandling hobo you don’t have any money, and then climbing
into your Maybach filled with gold bars and freshwater pearls. I mean, you don’t owe
the guy anything, but there’s no need to rub his nose in it.

3
My father once took me to work with him to show me how disgusting the meat production
industry is, how bloody and dirty and shot through with the stench of death. This
only made me want meat more. I don’t know what that says about me, other than that
I am impervious to lesson learning and have a highly developed ability to sublimate.

4
Oh yeah, my parents also didn’t believe in TV. Our house was a barrelful of awesome.

5
“One small step for me, one giant leap for mankind, you jive-ass sucka.”

6
No. I did not know, before Googling it, that in 2011 Adam Dunn (.159) was on his
way to beating Billy Sullivan’s record for lowest batting average ever (.170). But
now I do, and I am marginally richer for it. Just marginally, though.

7
Boston Baked Beans is the worst name for a candy since Nut Milk. Yes, there is a
candy bar called Nut Milk. Let it wash over you. Well, not literally. Ew.

1
Even as a child, I was very exacting. Some might call it anal. I might call it go
fuck yourself. Yes, even back then I would have called it go fuck yourself.

2
Why are kids so freaking dramatic? Nothing’s even happened to them yet!

3
This is one of the unsung joys of childhood: being able to give people the finger
and having it be seen as at once both shocking and cute. There is no way an adult
can get away with shocking
and
cute at the same time. Russell Brand thinks he has this dialed. He does not.

4
By the time I was in high school, my father had owned, in succession, three different
and progressively larger and more intimidating Kawasaki Ninja bikes. This made him
very popular among my male friends, and in defiance of all his efforts to the contrary,
I am confident got me laid more than once. This was wholly unintentional and supremely
disappointing. For
him.

5
Not that any little kids knew who Blaxploitation film superstar Dolemite
was
. But they could sense the
badness
blowing off my dad.

6
No. At no point did my father consider not riding bikes anymore. This was no more
an option than him becoming a dairy farmer or joining the priesthood—he would sooner
have lain down to die. We would be
cool
at any cost. Children be damned!

7
My dad was extremely loving, but very, very straightforward.

1
It does not matter who “them” are. Bullied people know who “them” are. And “them”
are gonna pay. “Them” are going to let us into their club and be nice to us and give
us the respect and the cookies we deserve.

2
This seemed to me a very heroic breakfast.

3
This behavior has not diminished in my adult life. My car is a wonderland of food
bars and portable water. My purse is so stocked with first aid implements that EMTs
could use it as a triage kit. As the Preppers and Millenialists and doomsday obsessives
proclaim hysterically, when the shit hits the fan (WTSHTF), I will be ready. And as
my friends have pointed out—partially in awe, partially in alarm—no paper cut, stubbed
toe, or other pedestrian injury obtained at a dive bar or elsewhere has ever gone
untreated in my presence. Got a boo-boo? I got some ointment for your ass.

4
This sounds fancier than it was. My father and I moved around a lot, based on how
his work was going. This place was high in the hills but trust me, no Hearst castle.
It was more like the place where the people who shined the shoes for the people who
occupied Hearst Castle lived—
Bootblack Manor
(murky racial overtones completely intended).

5
I had a germ thing when I was a kid. It has matured into a pretty fun, full-blown
neurosis as an adult. The greatest moment of my life was when they invented that liquid
hand sanitizer. Seriously. It was like my Diamond Jubilee.

6
I was far too young for Kegels.

7
Black + Nerd = Blerd.

1
And this is why I don’t have kids, because I would be one of those moms who dressed
her daughter in adorably inappropriate miniature versions of her own clothes and forced
her to attend her alma mater without a droplet of remorse. I would be mad with power,
my child forced to dress in pencil skirts and power suits while delicately sipping
bourbon-based cocktails, which would be especially objectionable if my child was a
boy, or a natural scotch lover.

2
Looking back, I can see that this might have something to do with the obsession with
mental preparedness I mentioned previously. Interesting how that works.

3
The requirements of parenthood have changed profoundly. In the olden days, if your
kid was fed, relatively clean, and had all their digits, you had done your job. Nowadays,
if your child is not dressed like a silvered butterfly and eating gluten-free cupcakes
with an ice-cold glass of organic almond milk for breakfast, you are fodder for CPS.
I occasionally long for the days when your mom’s arm, flung in front of your chest
as she narrowly avoided a collision, was seat belt enough. Those were heady days.
You could feel life in the center of your marrow.

4
This was his answer to almost everything. I never complained.

5
Most men don’t encourage their daughters to date at
thirty
. My dad has a unique mind.

6
Ruh-roh, Raggy.

7
Adjusted for inflation, my dad had given me a golden hubcap and two Franklins. I
was
rich
, bitches.

8
Left to my devices, with spending money and no supervision, I would purchase and
eat as much meat as I could obtain legally. To assuage any feelings of guilt, I would
eat all of the plant matter out of a dish first—say, the veggies in a stir-fry or
the parsley garnish on a steak—so as to demonstrate at least a nominal commitment
to vegetarianism.

9
In retrospect, it may be relevant to mention that this boy was Japanese, and I had
asked him out to Chinese food. This may have been my first and most fatal mistake.
It wasn’t racist, just thoughtless. In my defense, at the time, Americanized Chinese
food really was my favorite thing to eat.

10
I was one hundred percent right about that.

1
If you want to see the best distillation of how other cultures view American popular
culture, watch Korean pop videos. K-pop has appropriated our shit and done us one
thousand times better. And if imitation is truly the sincerest form of flattery, Americans
are all ripped-jeans wearing, neon-tank sporting, trend-obsessed teenyboppers who
care deeply about casual sex, drinking in nightclubs, and walking provocatively down
high school hallways in short skirts while being shot in the face with high-velocity
wind (not far from the truth).

Additionally, Koreans are way blacker than our black people could ever hope to be.
They are rapping, krumping, stomping, dapping, and generally out-blacking us as if
they came to one of our meetings and bought ten copies of the handbook. They are
killing
it over there.

2
Reading
Charlotte’s Web
really didn’t help.

3
If only the entire world could taste how fucking awesome this organic granola is!
And only four grams of sugar!!!

4
This is scientifically provable. Geese are out to get us.

5
And
certainly
nothin’ bout birthin’ no baby bunnies.

6
I would argue that idiots with good intentions are more dangerous than any other
idiots, as they are so much more aggressive with their dumbness. It’s like they can’t
wait to spray their dumb all over you. They’re like dumb-dumb cannons.

1
There is nothing that strains at its moorings more plaintively than a single parent
trapped in an apartment with a middle-schooler.

2
Another reckless favorite was turkey potpie
followed
by a turkey dinner. Turkey twice! What what? Hedonism. Followed by a nap.

3
Who highly resembles a black private dick who’s a sex machine to all the chicks?
My dad. You’re damn right.

4
Japanese throwing stars. You know you wanted some when you were a kid. You want some
now.

5
I once watched an entire movie in that chair while eating a mixture of sunflower
seeds and sour apple Now and Laters out of a plastic grocery bag. No one had the heart
to throw the little black girl who had nowhere to go out of the store. I
really
took advantage of these people.

6
Firestarter
. Read it twice. I feel no shame in admitting that.

7
I had no frame of reference for this. I just thought this is what all adult women
did. Splash cologne all over their naked bodies, and then run screaming back into
the shower stall.

1
You may be thinking, “Hey, your dad threw money at the boy problem you had in grade
school.” Of course, the difference here is scale. He was empowering me to be brave,
and also buying me stir-fry. That is way different than giving your kid a European
sedan to make up for being emotionally remote.

2
Yes,
that
Oakland. Which is actually not as terrifying as all the rap songs and contorted hand
signs would imply.

3
One
always
being “Master and Servant” by Depeche Mode.

4
Booo! Judge all you want, but this was a tragedy.

5
Parenthood is a metaphorical thicket of terror punctuated by small delights and mercies.
I fear it unreservedly.

6
Not really. I ate pretty well in high school. But the man could wield a boss threat.

7
Because I was a
teenager
. And that’s what teenagers do. Trying to get away with shit is in their nature, along
with an innate lack of curiosity, an invincibility complex, and terrible taste in
music.

8
As pleasant as any sullen teenager who listens to The Smiths incessantly and cuts
her own bangs with kitchen shears can be.

9
Tell that to George W. Bush.

10
This was my fatal mistake. What teenager fucking
dusts
?

11
With a tip of the hat to
The Brady Bunch.

12
Granted it was probably harder to sneak out of the third floor of a Victorian walk-up
and into the London night, but easier to sneak out of a Brazilian hut and into the
damp and verdant jungle. Each epoch has its triumphs.

13
This was San Francisco in the 1980s. We were lucky to afford something that wasn’t
already squatted on by a stony tribe of Burning Man refugees.

14
My father grounded me, of course. For a year. But after a few weeks of confinement,
he realized that if I had to stay in the house, he would have to stay in, too, to
keep an eye on me. The grounding ended prematurely, after a stern admonition that
if I ever tried anything like that again I would be in
serious
trouble. I was smart enough to take him at his word.