Life's Lessons - Revenge

I look at pictures from back then, pictures of my friends in the the "mini skirt" that was sometimes measured by the female teachers as we kneeled on the floor to make sure it was not too short. If it was, you were sent home. Pants were not allowed on girls, in any fashion, but we wore the styles of the later 70's with great pleasure. Well, most did. Clothing to me was just something to put on so I didn't get cold or arrested. I spent my money on airplane and car models, bottle rockets and BB's and stuff you could actually have fun with.

What fun is a @)*# sweater?

So you can only imagine my elation when it was finally announced. Girls can wear pants! The rules were strict, no jeans, hemmed with coordinating top. But pants. Those of you under 40 are probably laughing but it was quite the big deal.

Unfortunately, my Dad said no. I went to school in the hated dress, only to be subject to the objective ridicule of a gaggle of girls for whom fashion and their own ego held sway. You know the type. Friendly to your face, showing off their pert little bodies, gathering in the popularity on which they took sole nourishment, while their cruelty to the less popular had all the finality of a curse.

It was not a good day.

I came home, shut the door to my room and picked up an Ayn Rand novel (what, you think I was reading Pippi Longstocking?) and tried to pretend it didn't hurt just to belong a little bit.

My older brother had a little chat with my Dad, and the next day, I was at school in pants.

Within the year the "dress pants" rule went out the door and we could wear jeans. I was in heaven. I think I wore Levi's, a button down cotton shirt and my favorite sneakers for the rest of the school term.

But there was one thing, that even I couldn't get past my tomboy ways for. The Prom. For as much as I would rather not admit it, even now, I'm very much a closet romantic.


But a prom involved a dress. The PROM dress. Even I wasn't so totally out of it that I didn't see the beautiful fairy princess dress and sigh (only when no one was looking however).

I didn't expect to get asked. I had no concept of "looks" at that time, more interested in science and cars and the Daisy Rifle. But I was asked. By the Captain of the basketball team no less, two years older than I. And I got the fairy princess dress. It was light blue and white, with a fabric like clouds, sleeveless with a scooped neck and a beautiful sheer shawl of the same material. I felt like Princess Bride.

I made my Dad cry when I put it on. And I waited for my Prince to arrive.


My date never showed.

I waited and waited, first thinking he was late, then he had car trouble, and by the time the clock hit 9 pm I knew he wasn't coming. I took off the dress and put it in the back of my closet at Dad's where it probably still is.

Apparently one of the girls, (how can I put this delicately), more free with her, uh, favors, said she wanted to go with him at the last minute. He knew he'd be lucky to get a kiss from me, from her the Happy Meal AND the toy. She was bendable, posable, you know what I'm getting at here. But he didn't have the guts to just break the date with me, he simply no showed.

Soon thereafter, I opted out and started college, before my 16th birthday. I never saw him again. In the long run, it didn't change my opinion of men. I have multiple brothers. I work with nothing but guys. My best friend is a guy. I'm still good friends with anyone I ever dated. I think men are the best. This was just one guy, long ago, but for a few months, with the poorly focused energy of youth, I'd wished I could make him hurt, like he hurt me. Then, I pretty much forgot about it, seeing things out in the world that made a childish act seem sort of inconsequential.

Picture 13 years later. I'm head of a large unit that is recruiting pilots to do some contract squirrel work, and in comes the candidates. (Oh, you can SEE where this is going).

In comes my prom date.

He sits down, looks up, does a double take. The braces are gone, the hair was shorter, and I was definately all grown up. But I didn't look a whole lot different. Except, I'm also wearing a uniform and he recognizes what the little thingy's on it mean.

I look him straight in the eye, pick up his application, and say -

"Do you know how many hours I had to babysit to buy that dress? "

He quietly got up and left the room.

Divine justice. I thought it would feel wonderful, but the vindication felt surprisingly hollow. Actually I sort of felt like a jerk. He'd been a horny teenage, I was just a kid. In retrospect as an adult, if he thought of the event at all, he probably realized it was not the right thing to do. He might even have felt bad about it. But I never gave him the chance to apologise.

We often do thoughtless things based on our own needs and wants, especially when we are young. Certainly I have. But sometimes you just have to look back and let it go. For only when you do, when you forgive, are you truly free.

Still, not going to vote Democratic. Ever.

Love - Brigid