no but seriously if one more person calls me ma’am i’m gonna cutta b*tch

“go ahead. call me ‘ma’am’ one more time.”

so we were in holly’s hometown of butler, PA, over thanksgiving and we went to the mall on black friday. which honestly? is like an average day at a mall in say, jersey, where people will literally deck you for your hot potato at the food court.

anyway, i walk into hot topic because a) i was by myself (holly’s not a fan of faux-punk, faux-goth teenage stores, go figure) and b) i still like it. i mean, where else can you find a ramones shirt at the clearview mall in butler, PA? like, nowhere. anyway.

i walk in and this guy behind the counter is like HELLO MA’AM CAN I HELP YOU FIND ANYTHING?

at first i felt like looking around, expecting to see sophia from the golden girls standing behind me with her boxy little purse, shopping for body jewelry for her great grandkids. and then i’m like: WHAT.

HE’S TALKING TO ME? HE’S CALLING ME MA’AM IN HOT TOPIC? WHAT IN THE HELL?

my first instinct is, of course, to b*tchslap and tell him to shut his mouth when he’s talking to me.

i have been going to hot topic since FOREVER, ok? i want to shout. i was BORN in hot topic, OKAY. (actually i wasn’t. but i like saying that.) i will make this the worst day of your life on planet earth if you call me ma’am one more time.

instead i blink and say hello because, while i may be b*tchslapping you or enthusiastically pulling out your weave in my mind, i am nothing if not polite and usually quite likable, especially to strangers and the elderly.

i smile and tell him no thanks, i’m fine, just looking around.

are you shopping for gifts? he asks, somewhat effervescently (most people are so friendly in western pennsylvania, it makes you wonder what the hell’s wrong with everyone else in the country), obviously unaware that he should probably stop communicating with me lest i find a boxy little purse and hit him with it.

no, just looking around for myself, i say.

he clearly does not know how to respond. i’ve obviously thrown him for a loop.

oh! for…yourself! (awkward pause.) well….let me know…if i can help you find anything!

i say thanks, i will, as i walk towards a rack of bad discount t-shirts. my need to pull out his non-existent weave subsides. i feel sad and confused. i feel like a deflated balloon.

is this it? i think, slightly panicked. oh my gosh this is it. i’m old! am i old? i don’t feel old. i don’t think i look old. i’m wearing high-tops and jeggings. OLD PEOPLE DO NOT WEAR THESE SORTS OF THINGS. 

i console myself by thinking that the guy behind the counter probably just thought i was a hot older woman (older for, you know, him, because he’s probably, like, 17) and just wanted to talk to me. that must have been what it was. and he was just showing me the respect a hot older (for him) woman deserves.

like julia roberts. or, you know, karen from will & grace. (OMG LOVE HER.)

this doesn’t help. i wander around and look at the crap they’re selling (admittedly, it’s mostly crap. but it’s fun crap.) and then leave, somewhat broken-hearted. i pledge to never go back to the clearview mall hot topic, but i know i’m only fooling myself. i will go back. i always go back.

look, i’m acting like this is the first time this has happened but it’s not. when i go to the towson mall (that’s my spot yo!), it’s pretty much a bunch of really cute, sweet college kids working at the stores. and they call me ma’am but i can ignore it for some reason. (probably because i had towson university students as interns at a  job years ago. or maybe it’s simply my will to, you know, actually keep going to the mall instead of curling up in a ball with my organic night cream.) but being called ma’am in hot topic was far too much for me. it was like a slap in the face.

 a little piece of me broke inside and it can never be repaired. 

i know i sound dramatic, but ladies, i know you feel me. it’s like: i am not ma’am! i am not a “ma’am”! while i may not be a “miss” i am most certainly not a “ma’am.” it’s kind of like: i know by definition, i’m a “a lesbian,” but HELLO! i am totally not! WHY YOU GOTTA CALL ME A LESBIAN. I KNOW SOME REAL “LESBIANS” AND I WILL TEXT THEM RIGHT NOW AND THEY WILL COME HERE AND KICK YOUR ASS.

anyway, my point is: i really am ’bout to cutta b*tch. i do not desire to be 20 (OH HELL NO) or even 25 again (LORD NO) but there’s a 15-year-old girl inside me with purple streaks in her hair that’s really and totally confused why everyone thinks i’m an adult.

so. some new rules for strangers working in stores, etc.

1. if you feel like calling me ma’am, hold your breath and count to 10. like you’re trying to stop the hiccups or however the hell that goes. just say hello. why you gotta call me anything?? say HELLO, LADY. how ’bout that? “lady” works!
2.if you accidentally call me ma’am, run towards the nearest exit because i will be chasing you.
3. if you’re a woman wearing heels (or, you know, a man, if you’re into that, which hey, go’on wit’cho bad self, boy), THROW THEM OFF and run barefoot to the nearest exit. RUN LIKE THE WIND because while i may not be a “miss” i’m surprisingly fast, especially when i’m mad.
4. if i catch you, i will pull out your weave. so if you’re wearing one, best take it off right now. however, if you’re not wearing one, i will tape one to your forehead and rip it off so you’re pretty much screwed either way.

my next post will either be about a) hairbands (where do they all go??) and how holly says i “don’t need to buy more because they’re all over the house, put those down, you don’t need them, let’s go look at towels and other boring things” blah blah blah but hello! if that were true i’d actually find them. or b) how i’ve been starving since september because holly started grad school and now doesn’t have any time to cook so i eat granny smith apples and cheesesticks for dinner every night, which sucks and makes me mad and i’m therefore more likely to act out when people call me ma’am.

(p.s. don’t tell holly but i totally just bought more hairbands yesterday. next week i will have none. i think they’re all in our vacuum. holla!)

xxx
jessica

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some notes on my hair over the years

i’ve had a lot of hairstyles in my 30 years. but these days, it’s longer than ever. i’m so happy about this that, yes, i’ve decided to devote a whole entry to it. and here’s how i’ve been wanting to start it off:

i love having hair long enough that i can pull it around to my nose and smell my shampoo. when you have short/shortish hair (which i had for years), you never know how your shampoo/conditioner smells in your hair! it’s true, oh come on, girls (and some guys), you know it’s true. and if you’re reading this and you have long hair, don’t even tell me you don’t get a secret thrill out of breathing in the scent of your wonderful-smelling hair.

i noticed this over the summer after i started using probably the best-smelling shampoo/conditioner ever (matrix’s sleek look line. and i promise i’m not getting paid to say that. hell, i wish i was! matrix, are you reading this?? i will be your new spokesperson!). maid of honor (moh)/bff nicolina was visiting from the west coast. we were outside walking around, maybe waiting to cross the street? and she was like, “omg, your hair smells soooo good.” and i was like “OMG RILLY?” and then i took a handful, pulled it around to my nose and was like, omg, it does. and omG it’s so long. like all the sudden it hit me. [i’ve since sent nicole her very own bottles and will randomly get txt msgs along the lines of “omg my so hair smells so good! omg ijs.” (hi nicole! omg ily ijs ttys!)

the whole thing’s got me thinking about all the hairstyles i’ve had, many of them, looking back on it now (20/20 hindsight, i always say), bad. the photo above, i will sheepishly admit, wasn’t taken all that long ago. it’s from my “bad weave” facebook album. yeah, i decided to get pinkish-purplish extensions. they quickly lost their color. and i quickly proceeded to fry them with my one-inch flat iron [yes, i have curly hair; i straighten it w/a 400 degree flat iron almost every day (luckily, i’ve got it down to a science and it doesn’t take too long)]. they became frazzled, puffy, awful things. holly has always been supportive of my hair adventures, but this was the only time she ever downright disapproved. before they even got terrible-looking, she was like, “honey, i feel like i don’t even know you anymore. i don’t like them.” i was like: woh. this is bad.

i took matters into my own hands and removed them on my own. bad decision. i won’t give you details, but i think i’ve got a bald spot somewhere on my head, tho i haven’t been brave enough to really look. whatever. they’re out now. i’m much happier. so is holly. and i shall say: never again.

i think i told you about the year my hair was so big (ha, i’m starting to chuckle as i write this) that it didn’t fit w/in the frame of my school photo (that was also The Year of the Knot So Big That Mom Had to Team Up With Grandma to Comb it Out; baaaaad year). it was second grade, i think, and  i decided to ignore what was written on the bottles in shower and i think i was using conditioner instead of shampoo (cause and effect re: huge, photo-frame-defying hair). (my mom was so nice and said, “i think we won’t buy copies of your school photo this year.” and i–clueless, as always–was like, “ok.”)

when i was three years old, i decided i wanted to cut my hair “like my brother’s.”  (i know: gay.) i have a distinct memory of standing in my room with child-size scissors, snipping at my bangs. my mom was calling for me, asking what i was doing. soon i was standing in front of her downstairs (in elastic waistband pants and velcro sneeks) as she asked me–probably trying not to laugh–what i’d done. i’d cut my hair just like my brother’s, i explained. (an art teacher, my mom’s always believed in us kids expressing our creativity, so it’s not like i got in trouble or anything. plus, what was she going to do about it after the fact? i also cut the sleeves off one of her sweaters around that time. i was one of those kids who “got into things.” more stories for another day.)

i’ve done it curly and i’ve done it straight. did the whole angled, short-in-the-back-longer-in-the-front thing in the mid-90s (another bad look). i tried, desperately, to tease and spray my bangs up like all the cool italian girls (i’d say 75 percent of the kids i grew up with were italian) did back in the late 80s, early 90s. (that also failed miserably, as my thick, eastern european hair was just to heavy to, er, stay up like that.) then in ’99 i decided to just go whole-hog and cut it all off [see below (i know. the photo’s crooked. i’ve basically never scanned anything in my life except two photos and that’s one of them); and yes! ani difranco w/me! (in the basement bar of dc’s 9:30 club) i interviewed her for our college newspaper back in the day. she was extremely nice and generally awesome.) which was fun, but boring (my hair, not the interview). plus growing it out was another disaster. (can you say, um, jew fro??? yeah, notsofun, growin’ out a ‘pixie cut’ when you have said thick, curly eastern european hair)

i must say, at the moment, i’m happy with my hair, and have absolutely no plans to cut it anytime soon. i also must give three snaps in a z formation to holly for standing by my side the past 7.5 yrs as i went thru at least 10 different styles and quite a few colors (including the whole kelly clarkson chunky stripe thing. so outdated and so expensive and such high maintenance (esp. the red; yes i had the red. oy.). thanks for loving me thru the thick (hair) and the thin. also really bad extensions. and probably a bald spot or two. but like i said, i’m not certain about that and i’m really not all that interested in checking.