For one cruel year, I performed as a Mineral Wells Wranglerette, a dance team/cheer squad. I love to disco dance, love watching dancing, but I am, by in and large, a terrible dancer. It's just not one of my three talents in life, one of which includes a quite good William Burroughs impersonation, something that has thrilled many late into the evening at more than a few parties. The only reason I even made the Wranglerette team was that I was flexible (years of gymnastics) and could stay below the fascist-inspired weight requirements for performing at football games. God forbid, you sully the beauty of Texas high school football with one ounce of body fat! We were forced to use the scale in the gym when I started this sadistic misery, but the scale got moved because the boys in the gym would hang out and wait for us to begin the weekly weigh-in and start in, yelling moo, especially when someone who wasn't under ninety pounds stepped on it.
I got flattered into this nightmare by my biology teacher, a sweet woman whose stunningly beautiful daughter was the drill team captain. Jenny, a distant girl who drew no ire from anyone, amazed me. She'd somehow escaped all the labels the other drill team officers wore -- i.e., The Sexy One Who Sleeps With Everyone, The Bitch Who Had An Abortion, The Dork Who Would Marry A Preacher, and so on. Jenny wasn't scary skinny like I was (all ninety pounds, five of which were a very bad poodle perm), but she never went over our weight limit, never got caught vomiting in the bathroom stall like many of the other girls, never had nasty rumors spread about her. What a life! I know what happened to many of the other girls, but not her. I still wonder. As for me, I finished the year and vowed never to don the white cowboy hat and boots again. As for my bad hair, I had a girl in the locker room cut it all off, at least the really damaged parts. Her mother was a hairdresser and that was good enough for me. It looked better than it had in years and when it grew out, I never put it through its paces with perms and body waves and never cut it short again. I felt lighter by years and wouldn't have to go and vomit in a bathroom stall to make some stupid weight limit to feel that way.
Michelle's Spell of the Day
"You may go to hell and I will go to Texas." Davey Crockett
Cocktail Hour
Drinking music suggestion: A Love Supreme, John Coltrane
Benedictions and Maledictions
Happy Saturday!
5 comments:
I can walk like an ox, run like a fox, swim like an eel, yell like an Indian, fight like a devil, spout like an earthquake, make love like a mad bull, and swallow an Injun whole without choking if you butter his head and pin his ears back.--Davy Crockett
The white boots have been replaced by snakeskin ones.
I was on the dance team in high school. I love dancing! It is so much fun....as for the other people on the team... well... not so much.
As the captain of my highschool cross country team, my fellow comrades and I used to pelt the football players with water balloons. They could never catch us. Unfortunately, my coach started having us do strength training in the weight room, which meant sharing it with the football players. I learned the art of negotiation real quick.
Dear Michelle,
I can see you in your Wranglerette getup and it's quite an interesting view. Bravo on another amusing post! I think I recognize that kitchen staff.
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