Things you don't want to hear

I like to think that I'm a realist. I try to see the world as objectively as possible. I scoff at things like "emotion." What is this emotion that you speak of? Why the heck would you let things like emotion color your decisions? Look at the data, make a conclusion, and stop crying. Only girls do things like cry and show emotion.

Oh wait...

So it is within the context of my Spock-like realism that I will happily (actually... more like apathetically) admit that I am not hott. Like not hott at all. Hott people worry about their hair and how their legs look in those jeans. Hott people know how to be fashionable. Grace, on the other hand, has a high hairline and and super-thick glasses. (I once did one of those things online where you plug your mug into the website and they tell you which famous person you look like. I apparently bear a 93% resemblance to Kim Jong Il. No lie.) I have a receding chin which makes me look like I have a double chin. Makeup feels so slimy that I refuse to use the stuff. Sometimes I have small holes in the back of my shirt because I can't stand tags and I'm just borderline autistic that way. I'm short and stocky. I have a husky voice and a heh-heh-heh laugh that's downright creepy. I'm a real plain jane, and I know it.

In general, I'm happy with being plain ol' me. I can look perfectly presentable when I ditch the purple sweatpants, and I clean up fairly well. I look awesome in a suit, when I get the chance to wear one. When my hair isn't having a George Washington moment it curls very nicely. I'll never be able to shop at all the Hott Teacher Fashion Stores at the mall, but that's OK. Nobody else can rock a pair of Ming Dynasty Slipper Socks quite like me.

Every once in a while, though, somebody notices that while I bear a 93% resemblance to Kim Jong Il, I only bear a 37% resemblance to the hott people that I, being a middle-income white female smack in the middle of my pre-metabolic-plunge period, should look like. And every once in a while, I get to hear things that I don't really want to hear, but at least it's incredibly funny.

Like yesterday. I was talking to the teacher in the classroom about the wiles and machinations of my cute kiddo. Everything was just going swimmingly when all of a sudden the teacher just stops dead in the middle of her sentence.

"Oh my gosh, Grace. Did someone punch you?"

I was more than a little confused.

"Punch me? Punch me where?" I mean, I haven't attended karate class in years. Just look at my paunch.

"Your eye! It looks like you have a black eye. I thought maybe LG punched you. And seriously, if he punches you in the eye, you kinda need to tell me, you know?"

"Oh. That. That's just me when I don't sleep well. Nobody punched me."

"Wow," said the teacher, still a little shocked. "That's kind of impressive."

"I know. It's a point of pride." Well, I thought resignedly to myself, that's what happens when you don't wear makeup.

And then there was that time a few years ago at some random picnic with lots of preschoolers running around. If there's one thing I've learned about five-year-olds, it's that they're brutally honest. No adult has ever mentioned that the thickness of my glasses creates an optical illusion that makes my eyes look different, but dozens of little kids have told me that my eyes look really, really small. Also, they're almost as tall as me, and they didn't know that adults could be that short. Gee, thanks.

On that particular day, I was wearing a bucket hat, because I will repeat, I have no fashion sense. But hey, even if I'm unfashionable, I still get along well with kids because we all think that adults are just weird. So I decided to be friendly, bucket hat and all. My victim was a cute little girl who was wandering around in my general vicinity.

"Hi," I boomed, which sometimes happens if your voice is deeper than most. "Whatcha doing?"

The little girl stared.

"You have a shovel. I bet you were playing in the sandbox. What did you make?"

She continued to stare. Um, awkward.

"Did you make a castle? Or a house?"

The little girl decided to break her silence.

"Are you a boy or are you a girl?" Um, super awkward. Also, what? I speak small child fairly well, but I was confused at this one.

"Why do you think that?" Drat, I boomed again.

"Girls have hair, like me!" Ah, the logic of children.

"Well, I have hair too," I countered.

"No you don't," squeaked the girl in her high-pitched voice. It brought back painful, confusing memories of when I was five and practiced having a high-pitched voice, because even then it was deeper than most.

"Yes I do. See?" I took off the bucket hat. My flat, frizzy hair came falling out.

The girl stared. A long, long stare. Then she just lost interest and ran off. Totally anti-climactic.

I was still a little puzzled about the comment. Why did I look like a boy? Was something wrong with my hair?

I went inside the house and found our hosts' bathroom. I stuffed all my hair inside my bucket hat and looked in the mirror.

Well, I could definitely see her point. The hat and my receding hairline had conspired against me to look like I had no hair at all. Combined with my deep bass (just kidding, I'm not that bad, unless I pretend to sing opera), I kind of did look like a boy. I also looked totally bald. In fact, I looked like one of small cancer victims who gaze at you forlornly on charity websites, hiding their lack of follicles under.... bucket hats.

Suddenly, I realized the sad necessity of fashion. My cheeks turned tomato red. I ripped that bucket hat off then and there and stuffed it in the garbage can. I walked out of that bathroom a free woman, secure in my own femininity, but I paid a steep price. Specifically, I lost out on the $6.88 I had shelled out to purchase the bucket hat from the clearance bin at WalMart, and that money could have funded an entire meal at McDonald's. Now that was galling.

I guess, every once in a while, when somebody says something I don't really want to hear, I do get a little twinge of jealousy towards all those pretty people being hott all over the world. I'm usually just fine with being me, but sometimes I do wish my hair were just a little easier to control and just one store carried fashionable jeans with a 27-inch inseam. But hey, I take what I can get.

At least no child has ever asked me if I was pregnant, because that would obviously mean that I would need to lose weight, pronto. But I have been asked how many grandchildren I have. Crud, I have no idea how to fix that one.