Standing up

Where shall we go today? Perhaps the topic of standing up for yourself vs. doormatism would be nice. The trick is to balance between being a harridan (look it up) and Casper Milquetoast (look him up). However, I do not wish to go any further than this in principle or seriosity. I feel nuts today, so let’s be nuts.

Once upon a time there was a woman who made dresses out of material printed all over with “Kick me” signs. There were white, red and yellow ones, even bling signs across her chest and behind. When she went out, some people would give her a little ankle kick and others would rear back and kick her so hard she was three blocks down before she landed. (Sometimes when she was late for work, that was helpful.)

One day she was waiting for a red light to change so she could cross the street, when  a little old lady with coke bottle glasses began reading her dress. “My dear, whatever posssessed you to make a dress of this nature?”

“I couldn’t say, exactly.”

“I believe you meant to say that you choose not to say.” The little old lady cocked her head, and smiled. “If you say, you may find that you want to replace your dress.”

The light changed, and the woman rushed ahead of the little old lady and hung a left. She arrived at the next corner, where the light was again red, and son of a gun if the old lady wasn’t standing there. “Feel like saying yet?”

“I thought if I suggested it, it wouldn’t feel so bad when someone chooses to kick me.”

“Hmmmm, interesting concept. What makes you think you deserve to be kicked?”

“That’s all the saying you get. Didn’t work. No more talking.” The woman turned around and hurried back the way she had come.

However, her world seemed to be full of red lights. At the corner she had to wait, and there was the old woman again.

“How do you do that?”

“Must be a God thing. He wants you to know no one deserves being kicked. You are His creation. He finds your dress very sad.”

“Why did He make me with a big butt and a hawk nose, and not very smart or creative. Why do I live in my crazy family if He thinks so much of me! People take every opportunity to put me down, my relatives and people I don’t even know.”

“Here’s your homework. The next time someone puts you down, say to them, ‘Funny, I don’t believe that.’ “

The old lady crossed the intersection and disappeared.

Just then, a young man tatooed with numbers and tear drops and a dragon shooting fire down his arm, whose pants hung under his butt, kicked her and said, “Hey loser, you’re ugly as a mud fence.”

“Funny, I don’t belileve that.” A feeling came over her, warm like a love song, and she hurried home. Tearing off her kick me dress, she looked at herself in the mirror. Her nose wasn’t so bad, and her big butt was kind of a giant heart. How come she hadn’t seen that before? She put on a pair of jeans and her favorite soft sweatshirt. Then she sat down at her computer and began to type, “I wonder if angels ever look like little old ladies.”