I was a Daria fanatic! But don't try to let that help you guess my age. It won't help. I was hardly a member of their key demographic and got into the show long after it had been canceled...which reminds me, I really need to get that new Daria DVD collection so I can throw away my bootleged copies that aren't that great but got me through the rough patches when MTV stopped airing the re-runs...
Anyway, in an episode of the show, Daria's best, and only, friend-and-fellow-outcast Jane calls her a "Twisted Little Cruller".
I identify with Daria. I grew up the dowdy one that everyone was mildly afraid of, the one openly made fun of, and left out of everything. I was also the girl in school who walked around pretending not to care that I didn't have friends. Pretending that I wanted to be alone. That I valued my privacy and that I was really FAR too mature to care what a bunch of dumbass kids did with their weekends down on the farm. I'm not kidding, there were farms involved.
Sometimes I didn't want to know. But most of the time I did. When the limos drove past my house the night of Junior prom and my older sister made fun of me for not having a date or even a group of friends to go with, I just rolled my eyes and said "my friends wouldn't waste their time or hard-earned money on dresses and hair and fancy makeup for 2 hours of bad food, worse music, and a gym that smells like sweatsocks transformed into what's supposed to be some dream location but is really just alot of garbage bags, crepe paper, and cotton for clouds. I would rather do my homework, thank you!"
She knew better, of course. But at least she left it alone. Like Daria, there are all kinds of twists about me. I smile, I look sweet and innocent, a little on the stupid side, and like an easy target. But, I also have a breaking point. A point I reach when I've been targeted just a little too much for just a little too long. Because, unlike Daria, I've got a few more years under my belt than she had and I've figured out how to use those erroneous perceptions to my advantage when I need to and when to break out the little Gargoyle-loving psycho when she will benefit me the most.
For instance, I was working a crappy job as a grocery store clerk. Yes, my life is that exciting. It was Christmas Eve, so it gets even more exciting. I had been there 6 hours, we were closing in 2 and I didn't have it in me to smile anymore. I wasn't even looking at the customers at that point, just mindlessly saying "Have a nice Christmas". I said it to someone who responded loudly with "I'm an atheist, Miss, and you have highly offended me!"
Of course, the entire busy store has grown silent at this outburst and when I look up, I find Charles Manson's brother, but much bigger, taller and with a thicker beard, wearing greasy blue work overalls trying to intimidate me by staring me down with his big, scary eyes and smug smile and there were tense whispers all around me as they expected tears or a stammered "I-I-I'm sorry". That, of course, is certainly not what they got when I put Dorothy Gayle away and brought out good ol' Gargoyle.
"The Calendar recognizes today as Christmas Eve and tomorrow as Christmas Day. I wasn't suggesting you have a nice holiday, I was simply telling you that I hoped you had a nice evening and a nice day tomorrow since they happened to be labeled as "Christmas", which is no different than saying 'have a nice Monday'. But if it will make you feel any better, I no longer hope that for you. In fact, I hope you have a really shitty Christmas AND a really shitty Monday."
Everything fell silent, including Charlie Manson's brother, then the customers started laughing, my boss turned off my stand light and told me to finish with the current customer and go home, that he would deal with me when I returned, and my fellow workers patted me on the back on my way out.
That was definitely a little twisted on my part and a side the folks I had known for a bit had never seen of me. I like to give people a surprise every now and then. It's good to shake things up once in awhile. Keep 'em guessing.
And that, my friends, is what makes me a twisted little cruller!
T.L.C.
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