Ridicule

Hello, friends.

I'm going to go ahead and assume that I am currently (a) drunk, or (b) passed out right now. It's very hard to tell considering the fact that these posts were written in the days of yore compared to where you are right now.

Today I give you Ginny from Praying to Darwin, who is the first blogger that I ever really read other than myself. And I did read myself, over and over and over again. But Ginny is one of those bloggers that you read and you think you know, but you don't fucking know. She's got high-quality storytelling coupled with good timing and good taste (by which I mean just like mine). She rules. I wish I could just sit here and gush all day, but I have a hangover to deal with. Probably. She wasn't quite sure what to write about, so I gave her a word: Ridicule.

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Let me just begin this post with an aside about how much I frakkin' love Rassles. I love her. A lot. She's written some of the most brilliant stuff I've read, ever. This one sunk it's hooks into me, and I've been smitten ever since. As far as I'm concerned she is The Shit.

So when the person you think of as The Shit, asks you to guest post, well, you blush a little that she thought of you, and then hope you don't embarrass yourself.

Which, dovetails nicely with the topic she gave me. “Ridicule.”

I got all angsty, wondering what the hell to do with it. And then it came to me. A story that, until now, I have seriously never, ever told another human. Crap, I'm pretty sure I never even shared it with a stuffed animal. So, here goes:

I grew up in a desert. This little piece of the Canadian prairie that gets so little rainfall, it actually qualifies as desert. There were no lakes, no rivers, and ponds never lasted more than 5 minutes. The reservoir up the road was more green ick and mosquitoes than water. The nearest town was an hour away. Frolicking in a pool would never have justified a half tank of gas. So I didn't learn to swim. I'd never even been to a pool. Until Grade 2.

In Grade 2, they tell us we're all, the entire elementary end of the school (50 kids), going to the next town over, to the pool, for the last day of school. I take the permission slip home. And then, we realize, I have nothing to wear. Never been swimming, ergo, no swimsuit. We're poor – can't justify the purchase of a suit, specifically for swimming, when god only knows if I'll ever need it again. But we've got these city relatives who send bags of hand me downs. And at the very bottom of one is a swimsuit. Praise be to the city relatives.

So we get to the pool, I go into the change room, struggle into the suit. I've never had one on before, and its stretchy and snappy and a little inscrutable, but finally, I get it on. The other girls' suits are pink, purple, ruffled, but above all, cute. Mine? Isn't. Red and white. Maple leaves, and the word “Canada” over and over. They're staring at me, all of them, and some of them are whispering. And I'm just wishing so hard that I had something cuter to wear.

But I really, really want to go swimming in a real pool. So I walk out onto the pool deck. Ignoring those girls with every muscle in my body. I stand on the cold cement, survey my surroundings.

A Grade 3 boy sees me, does a double-take, stops splashing.

“Holy crap, you guys, look at Ginny! If she had boobs, they'd be hanging out!”

It wasn't the maple leaves, the garish white on red color scheme, or even the unintended display of patriotism on my suit that made those girls stare.

No, it was the fact that I'd put the racer-back swimsuit on...backwards.

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