Gives You Hell

My parents were brilliant, brilliant people. In hindsight I certainly see this, since hindsight is 20/20. I can, without a doubt, clearly see that they held my hand and led me down the path to being an ugly duckling. I arrived at the Mecca of ugly ducklinghood at a very young age and my parents took every conceivable measure to keep me there. I do understand that I was raised in the 80's so I didn't have much working in my favor to begin with...but come on, my parents could have done much better with the cards they were dealt--but they didn't.

Let’s start with my twice yearly bad perms (tragically bad perms!). Yes, perms where "in" back then. But did I really have to go to some random lady's house in the ghetto where she performed said perm in her living room? I take this to be some sort of indication that my mom really didn't give a shit how the perm came out. And you would think that after this random lady burned my hair to the point where big chunks of it fell out (on several occasions mind you) my mom would have taken me elsewhere. But no. To add insult to injury my hair would be cut/styled into the female equivalent of a mullet after each bad perm. Thanks Mom.

My clothes. I think I would have been perfectly happy (maybe even ecstatic) with clothes from K-mart up until the 6th grade or so...because, honestly, you will become willing to wear just about ANYTHING to avoid having your mom make every single item of clothing that is in your closet. Yes. I was THAT kid. My shirts had ponies, puppies, bows, and all sorts of other crap on them that will get you pelted with balls on the playground. Years of wearing homemade clothes cemented my social status: it put me just one notch above the girl with polio crutches (God bless her frail little heart). Again, thank you Mom.

I am confident that my father was the mastermind behind this plan. This plan saved him many sleepless nights and he really didn't have to do much to pull it off either because he had a lot of help. Me being freakishly tall and skinny helped. Me having jacked up teeth that resulted in braces or some sort of retainer for 4 years helped. Me having minimal coordination and no natural ability to play any sort of sports helped. Me being smart and having a strong drive to excel in school helped. But, nonetheless, his plan worked. I went through high school with MAYBE a hand full of dates and only 1 kiss. However, I find myself very thankful that my parents did absolutely nothing to cultivate my self-esteem. Being an ugly duckling forced me to develop a personality because I couldn't rely on my looks to get me anywhere in life. Although, lucky for me it turns out that you can really ride charm and wit a long way nowadays—score! And perhaps best of all--I have discovered that guys really appreciate women with low self-esteem; it saves them the work of having to lower it themselves. And to all the boys that never gave me a second look back in elementary school, junior high, and high school....I hope it gives you hell to see me now!