Seriously. Are you for real with this shit, Karma? On the list of Things That Cannot Possibly Be Right With The World (war, famine, disease, global warming, violence, yeah yeah I know) a prosperous Mindy Ruddy has got to be in there somewhere. Because seriously guys? She was a BITCH.
But here's the thing: back in the day, I was told that all bullies suffer from terrible self-esteem ("they hate themselves more than they hate you!") and while this may in fact be true, I was also promised that all bullies would eventually end up hating themselves so much they'd drop off the face of the Earth to become meth-heads and/or prostitutes; this was the Great Nerd Liferaft offered to me by well-meaning adults in the middle of my Secondary School Shitstorm - that one day, when we both grew up, Mindy Ruddy would go crazy on smack and lose all that pretty blonde hair in a prison license-plate accident, and I would finally lose the glasses and the gumby legs and the propensity for vomiting on my sneakers EVERY FUCKING TIME we ran the mile (finally I just forged a DR's note that said I had my period), and I'd get married to a hot guy worth seven figures who thought of me as his trophy wife. In my head it was a completely plausible nerd fairy tale....
...Except the truth is Mindy does not have a prison record and I do not have a hot husband, and this means I was inadvertently mindfucked by some well-meaning adults and some supposedly well-meaning fiction. And now I want to jump in my Delorian and go back to 1996 and be all, "NOOOO! Don't believe the lies, young JLM! That hot Asshat is gonna grow up and marry another hot asshat! You might as well get your jollies in now and embrace your weirdness and for crying out loud quit doing your hair like that!" (Permed and framed by bangs that were modeled after high-tide rolling in. ugh - I KNOW - it's like I never even had a chance.)
But this is exactly the problem with fairy tales, isn't it? We go around perpetuating these stories about girls who have narcoleptic fits only to wake up to a hot guy on a horse totally macking on them. Or girls who leave their glass shoes just lying around at parties and get a ring out of the first guy who accidentally trips over one and brings it back. (Why do you think we spend our entire adult lives fucking obsessed with shoes?) Or mean girls (who once made me trace my own face on the sidewalk with chalk!) by virtue of karma, growing old and fat and ugly and prison-like and addicted to drugs. These are LIES, people - and yet we continue to tell them anyway - as if fantasy is some great heirloom to be passed down. Or maybe for adults it's some Shadenfraude thing. Either way, I would have been much better served if someone had just said to me, "Look, Jaime. It's very likely Mindy will be 'bitchy-hot' long into her childbearing years, so just continue to be asmartass and don't apologize to assholes. Eventually your weirdness will serve you - either as a writer or an improviser who performs in the basements beneath old abandoned Chinese restaurants. Either way, chill the fuck out. And by God in heaven, vests with plastic flowers on them are NOT COOL!"
(PS: my mother and I fought over this vest from Contempo Casuals for days, and although I won it was ultimately a win for NOONE. Just picture Holiday Inn Express lobby flowers hot-glued to polyester. I actually have a class photo in it - I promise you blogland, I WILL find this photo...)
Anyway.
From now on, why don't we just tell kids the dead-ass truth?
"And then she kissed the frog and realized that certain frogs are highly poisonous and most are unwilling to commit."
"After pricking her finger on the spindel, the princess was rushed to Roosevelt Hospital where she was diagnosed with lock-jaw and tetanus. Following the four hour wait in Triage, the prince ditched her after royally proclaiming, 'Fuck this, where's that bitch with the seven midgets?' meanwhile the princess blew an entire royal paycheck on antibiotics because Health Care for Princesses and Magical Creatures offers shitty coverage and no prescription co-pay."
(Ugh, seriously, guys? Mindy's kids are so adorable it's unnecessary. Damn you, Karma. This is all your stupid fault.)
In the end I suppose it's not nearly as appetizing to tell the truth - even if it sure would save us a lot of heartache. Also, I guess discovering what is true and hideous in the world is actually how you become an adult - like someone kicking out all your baby teeth and replacing them with Broken Dream Invisiline.
But really, Karma, would it be so terrible if you could just make all of Mindy's pretty, pretty blonde hair fall out? Like in The Craft when Neve Campbell does that kickass glamour on Christine Taylor and she goes totally bald and starts bawling in the locker room shower? (Remember how that movie was awesome?) Or maybe just make sure one of Mindy's adorable little girls ends up glasses-ridden, obsessed with Mel Brooks and super fucking bad at running the mile. Pretty please, Karma?
(Also, a money tree and David Duchovny circa 1998 would be good, too - for me. Not for Mindy. Clearly.)
* names changed to protect... well, me.
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