Funny, right? And what great marketing! Boy, that mom really knew how to get her sassy daughter!
Except... It's not really funny when it happens for real, at least not while it's happening or when anyone you know brings it up anytime within that first year. And really, traumatizing our kids is really the best part of parenting. I know that now, but back then?
Let me take you back to the summer of 1992. I was twelve years old. Pearl Jam's controversial Jeremy video was all over MTV and my best friend Heather and I spent the night at our friends' apartment so we could swim and hang out and be girls. The next morning, we woke up late and went to the living room, where we sat and ate our bowls of cereal and lounged on the couch, watching MTV with glazed expressions and critiquing all the videos, as if they had societal relevance.
I stood up from the couch at one point and Heather called behind me, "Um, JoElle...?" And then, "Mary, you'd better come here!" (Our friends' mom.)
Next, chaos ensued. I couldn't figure out what all the fuss was about, until finally I slowly turned around to see that the entire cushion of the couch I had been sitting on was saturated with blood. It looked like a murder scene in which the victim sat there and simply bled out.
I was mortified. I mean what are you supposed to do when you unknowingly ruin your friend's furniture in the most disgusting way possible? And me? I was in total shock. I was bawling my eyes out, unable to move.
Mary eventually took me into the bathroom, gave me some towels to clean up with and a fresh change of clothes, along with the necessary supplies and instructions to deal with the rest of the day. After about 20 minutes of fumbling around in the bathroom between sobs, I finally came out. I can't even begin to describe the embarrassment.
Little did I know what had transpired while I was in that bathroom, but I was soon to find out.
An hour or so had past and Edythe, Heather's mom came by. She brought with her a white box from a grocery store bakery. (It's necessary to explain here that Edythe was my 2nd mom. Heather's family took care of me as if I was their own and I was familiar with all their friends and their friends' kids. There were years when I spent more time at their house than my own.) Next, all of the people I knew started to show up and filter into the small apartment. Then Mike (Heather's dad), and so on until basically everyone I had ever met in my 12 years of existence was there.
And then the cake came out.
Scrawled barely legibly in green icing was "Congradulations Joelle!" Obviously, this was a rush job. No time even for proofreading and this was long before spellcheck.
Of course there were candles and there was music. I couldn't hide or run away. They wouldn't let me. This party was mine. I had somehow earned it. I received hugs and uncomfortable congratulatory remarks. I was given at least half a dozen private oratories on how this was the first day of womanhood and how proud-slash-happy I should be.
Yes, friends, this really happened.
So several hours later, everyone left and I was finally able to work through some of the horror of that day.
"Welcome to womanhood," they said.
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