I don’t remember how Shirl Grrrl and I became friends. We met in 7th grade when I was the new kid in town, and we both thought N was cute and funny. We shared our disgust when he didn’t sit with us on the bus we rode on one of our field trips. Instead he sat with a dim-witted blonde girl, put his arm around her, and kept edging his hand ever closer to her bodacious ta-tahs. Shirl and I did not have bodacious ta-tahs (not then, not now) and so we were jealous on more than one level. This was our first important life lesson: In middle school (and beyond), boobs would nearly always triumph over brains, a law of nature I've dubbed the Jessica Simpson Effect.
We spent hours on the phone discussing this, N, and other dramas, and we constantly pissed off the people that shared the “party lines” that served our homes in rural Virginia. The party on the party line was always Shirl and me, and sorry, the old biddies down the country road were NOT invited. “I wish they would quit picking up on us! Is somebody listening?”
Shirl is a Southern Grrrl but not a Southern Princess. She totally appreciated my weirdness and got my jokes. I would write over-the-top fiction and poems just for her. My stories featured the adventures of superheros and villains that had names and characteristics that were remarkably similar to our classmates and teachers. Making fun of our lives and situations helped us with all our insecurities and angst.
Shirl Grrrl helped me laugh at the snarky girls in middle school who liked to tease and snub me and roll their eyes when I went by in the hall.
“Well GAWSH!”
“ I NEVAH!”
(Remember AJ and PB, Shirl Grrrl?)
We also bonded over our high school crushes. I still remember Shirl’s delight and confusion in her relationship with a certain tuba player (yes, a TUBA player), her secret longing for hometown honey JLM, and her unrequited love for J, the farmer boy. She saw me through two big high school romances and my bouts of adolescent depression. We hung out at softball and football games, waiting for SOMETHING to happen (not on the playing field, but near the parking lot where the REAL action was.)
We had our inside jokes, secret catch phrases, and bizarre vocabulary: “Everything’s corny!” “Alas, alas!” “That’s so corrupted” “There goes Chicken Lips.” We passed notes, had sleepovers, watched Saturday Night Live together, and studied creative writing in a special school program.
We kept in touch after high school graduation but never lived near one another again. Once when I was visiting my parents in Virginia and Shirl Grrrl was living at home, we made plans to get together in the evening. When we saw each other, we discovered we’d both spent part of that day shopping a Belk’s Department Store AND we had bought the exact same outfits. What made the coincidence even more ludicrous is that I’m 5’7” and Shirl is 4’11” and we’d never been known for dressing alike.
We both swore we’d never have kids and both changed our minds in our mid-30s. As we dealt with the demands of motherhood, we even had the courage to say, “Oh Lord, whose idea was this anyway?”
Shirl re-located from North Carolina to Indianapolis at the same time I crossed the pond and came to Belgium. Together we endured the rigors of moving and starting over and living in small apartments with small kids while waiting to move into houses. She is the one who introduced me to rubber stamping and card making and got me and E-Grrrl hooked on paper crafts.
Yesterday was Shirl Grrrl’s birthday. Now she’s almost as old as I am. We still get depressed together and she still helps me deal with snarky grrrls.
Commenting on a classmate’s recent boob job, Shirl said in her Southern drawl, “Honestly, V, why did she get implants at this point in life? I'd never do it. Where could big boobs possibly take us that we haven’t already been? Think about it!”
Good point.
We’ve been THERE. We’ve done THAT. And we did it all wearing toy bras! Woo hoo!
Happy (belated) Birthday, Shirl! May the titty fairy come in the night and leave you a BIG surprise (John made me say that!).
Yours til the Wonder Bra fits,
V-Grrrl
August 9, 2007