That Time I Went As French Fries

So there was this one Halloween - I think it was 5th/6th gradeish - I dressed up as McDonalds fries and it was for a damn good reason.

This was the dawning of a new chapter in my life. A chapter every person goes through. Luckily it is a very short chapter. This took place in the first few pages of puberty.

Even the word sounds creepy, right? "Puberty" Can't we name it something a little nicer and cooler? Something our parents can tell the family that won't sound embarrassing? Like...

"Oh you should have seen my little Desmond in middle school. That's when he walked into Mordor." 

or like 

"His zombie-space-dinosaur mode flipped on."

My personal battle with zombie-space-dinosaur mode was like I fell right into the movie "Mean Girls". Every single girl turned into Regina George. They all dressed a little skankier and were even calling each other bitches and skanks. Everyone smelled like Love Spell. I swear there is a permanent pink fog in the girl's bathroom because EVERYONE and probably their mom had that shit. When I smell Love Spell, I think back to buying a carnation for Gustav in the girl's locker room my sophomore year.

My scent was eau de sharpie.

I'm drifting away from the subject. My main point is everyone was trying to act like an asshole adult while little eleven year old me still liked filling a rubber chicken up with Legos and whipping it around so it threw up.


......Actually that still makes me crack up. Who wouldn't like a Lego vomiting rubber chicken?!



 So during Halloween, no joke, this is what I heard from every single girl in my class.

I didn't want to be a dead lady like everyone else. I don't know, I tried to get into all the trends like yo-yos and slap bracelets when I was a kid, but the moment girls started telling me I needed to shave my legs, I just decided to do my own thing. I didn't want to be like everyone else, it just looked like too much work and not enough fun.

So that year I threw myself into a hulking french fry costume goddammit. Because I refused to conform! Did I feel stupid in it? Hell yes I did.

But looking back, I think it's pretty cool I went as McDonalds fries. It took guts. I had the stupidest haircut in all history back in middle school and that's ok too. They made me stand out then and they make excellent stories now. Homer's Odyssey is daisies and rainbows compared to what it's like to be a preteen in middle school.


Moral of the story: Embrace your weird little self. It's more fun.