Of all the worst literary stereotypes of women

Well, there weren't all that many in the centuries before I was born.* The ones that spring immediately to mind include:

** The hooker with a heart of gold.

**  The innocent coquette from the gutter rescued by a prince pretending not to be one, just as she's at her wits'  end.

** The unattractive antagonist prone to malapropisms.

But the worst one, the ugliest stereotype of women, is the crazy cat lady. The spinster. The one who calls her cats her children and leaves them in her will if she doesn't get a visit from social services who find all 106 of them first.

Hey, check out this video of 7-week-old Eudora Steve just found!

Miss Eudora Thunderkiss

* Strange girls with strange names like Eudora and Flannery bucked the Southern system and blew those stereotypes out of the water for girls like me.

All these things that I've done

When I was 4, my parents lived in a house owned by my grandparents way out in the country while they were building a new house in town. It was a 20-mile trip into Shallotte for my daddy to work or for my mama to go grocery shopping.

On one grocery-shopping trip, I asked my mama to buy me a bag of Hershey's Miniatures and she said no. From my seat in the shopping cart, when my mama wasn't looking, I took a bag and stashed it inside my cute little navy blue with white polka-dotted raincoat. Seriously, that was an adorable little coat and I wish I could find a replica in an adult size.

Once we were driving back to the country house, I decided it was safe to start gobbling up the Hershey's Miniatures. I smashed them into my face, even the dark chocolates I still don't like. My mama was busy with my screaming infant sister in her car seat up front (it was the 70s) and didn't have time to pay attention to me in the back seat. My silence eventually caused her concern, and when she finally looked in the rearview mirror, she saw me: face and hands smeared with chocolate.

She whipped that Chrysler to the side of the road and yanked me out. That was one of only a handful of times my mama spanked me. She then turned the car around, drove back to the grocery store, dragged me inside and made me apologize to the owner, Mr. Gerald, as she paid for the candy. 

I learned my lesson, and I didn't shoplift again for eight years. My mama went back to work when I was in middle school, and my sisters and I went to my daddy's Western Auto store to hang out after school until she got back from her office job. Each day, Daddy would give us each two quarters, enough for a soda and a candy bar from the five and dime next door. Unfortunately, the grocery store two doors down installed a Ms. Pac Man machine. And I started pocketing candy from the five and dime while supervising my little sisters before going off to play Ms. Pac Man.

I never got caught. Was never even considered a suspect. It was, after all, a small town where everyone knew me as the child of my upstanding-citizen parents. I was the kid sent into a store to buy Vantage cigarettes while my daddy sat in the idling car. Oh if times were still that innocent. If I could have a child to send into a store to buy my smokes, I'd be tempted to have one.

My shoplifting spree didn't last very long. My Methodist upbringing instilled in me a healthy dose of guilt, especially after the one time I had to call the preacher.

When we Methodist kids were still young, but too old for nursery and children's church, we all had to sit on the front pew where our parents in the choir or my mama, the organist, could see us during the service. But when we became adolescents, we started ducking out to the Zip Mart between Sunday School and service to stock up on snacks, which we'd take with us into the balcony. One particularly boring Sunday, my best friend and I, all hopped up on M&Ms, cracked ourselves up and apparently disrupted the service.

Once we got home, my mother called the preacher to make me apologize. I was beginning to feel my oats at that time, so when she passed the phone to me, I said, "My mama says I'm sorry." Bad, bad decision. 

After being grounded for several decades, I got the bright idea, as my middle school was walking distance from my house, to invite my two best friends to skip school and come over. So we met up and hid on the outskirts of the kickball field then walked back. It was the funnest day ever! We watched Nickelodeon, made Pizza Quick for lunch and had a water fight indoors, managing to break one of my mama's favorite vases in the process. We found some glue, put it back together, and stuck it in a corner, where she didn't notice it for months. And I blamed one of my sisters. 

Then came high school. West Brunswick still had a clause, originally intended for children of tobacco farmers, wherein students could miss up to 30 days of school each year. We crafty kids mapped out each new school year with a plot of days we'd skip. And we did.

Getting caught was nothing more than a slap on the wrist for us. My daddy actually spotted us in town in my bitchin' Camaro senior year and turned us in. In-school suspension was nothing, at best, I actually got my schoolwork done. A few months later, my best friend and I got caught skipping and were sent to the vice principal's office at the same time. When he told us we were suspended for two days, we snickered and rejoiced that the weather was good, so we could go lay out on Ocean Isle. And we did. 

For us, it was all about laying around on the beach slathered in Afro Sheen during the day (really, it clogged up all the pores but turned us a lovely shade of orange), and cruising the boulevard in Myrtle Beach at night. I had too many (insert Bruce Willis Vocals) Seagram's Golden Wine Coolers and let a friend drive my Camaro home on King's Highway (Highway 17) one night and she decided to try to drag race a Maserati. And she blew a rod in the engine. 

I managed to limp the car home, turning up the Cure on the cassette deck to drown out the pinging sound. The next day, my daddy went out to check on the car, and I saw tears in his eyes for the first time ever.

So I got grounded. I was allowed to go to the prom, but had to be home by 11. My friends all had an awesome place at the beach and partied like rock stars, but I stayed home. Same went for graduation a few weeks later. But then, a week later, after the Superintendent's Excellence Awards banquet where I accepted three awards, my mama decided to let me and my best friend take her Pontiac 6000 down to the boulevard.

If you aren't from the South and have never experienced the Redneck Riviera that is Myrtle Beach, let me explain the cruising experience to you: Bumper-to-bumper traffic of teenagers, college students and too-old weirdos creep along at maybe 5 mph yelling at and flirting with each other. My best friend was driving my mother's car that night and a drunken, be-mulleted redneck staggered up to the passenger window and said, "Y'all are some pretty little mother------s." Standard compliment in Myrtle Beach. And we went home and told my mama we'd been to Swenson's, the best ice cream parlor ever.

That was a big old lie. I'm sorry.

Now that I'm getting things off my chest, I want to admit to all these things that I've done.

* I stashed crib notes for AP biology tests in the palms of my Madonna-inspired, fingerless, lace gloves in high school.

* I did nothing but party in college. I made great grades in my major (English), but I put in the least amount of effort possible, which is why I failed so many maths and sciences.

* When we were studying abroad in London, I just watched English TV and went to pubs.

* I only enrolled in grad school so I wouldn't have to get a job.

* In my first job at a vanity press, I encouraged people to buy the books, knowing it was a total fraud and not worth the paper they were printed on.

* I went three calendar years without an inspection sticker on my car before the state started enforcing it.

* I hooked up with two of my friend's exes and never told that friend.

* After promising not to, I cussed in a courtroom.

* I tricked car salespeople into giving me samples, which I used to further my career in advertising.

* After advertising, I found myself working in an ultra-corporate environment. I hated everything about it. I was tasked with writing a management memo and, to entertain myself, I worked in every corporate buzzword bingo phrase I could think of. I got an "atta-girl" note for it. (I just wrote "I was tasked," the stink is still on me. Shudder.) 

* I had free cable in my house for 10 years. When the cable company figured it out, I asked Steve to move in with me and transfer his cable account to my address.

Wow. That felt good. Weight of the world off my shoulders. I hope you don't think less of me.

Eureka moment

In These Trying Economic Times (TM), millions of suddenly jobless people like myself are clamoring for an angle. I'm happy to announce I've found mine! Consulting!

Yeah, right, you say, every unemployed professional considers him/herself a consultant and nobody's buying it.

And that's where you negative Nelly naysayers underestimate me, because I have an angle. I'm calling my new business (drumroll, please) "Sensitivity Training for Former Managers of the Newly Unemployed."

Here's a free demo of lesson number one: Things Your Former Employee Does Not Want to Receive In a Fedex Box at Her Home Several Weeks After Her Severance.

#1: A formerly unbroken coffee mug from a team-building exercise.

#2: A ratty, logo-branded fleece from a supply closet she used to wear around the office to stay warm.

#3: An old "atta-girl" note from management. 

My expert advice that will save costs on shipping charges (and it's all about cost savings in These Trying Economic Times)? Be proactive and do the following:

Sign up now! I only have so much time in the day between blogging, napping and watching television programs. All clients will be accepted on a first-come, first-served basis.

And? You're welcome.

Wherein I relate an awkward teenage story of unrequited love that doesn't involve a pop star

My husband, Steve, had a crush on a girl at school back in England in the 80s. Her name was Donna and he admired her from afar from the ages of 13 through 16, too nervous to tell her how he felt. They ran into each other in a pub 10 years later and reminisced about a bus ride they shared one night as kids. She told him, "I was hoping you'd make a move on me that night."

They had a laugh and, luckily for me, didn't attempt to rekindle whatever teenaged passion they missed out on.

I had a love like that, too. But it lasted, at least on my end, many years longer.

Before I started kindergarten in 1974, my mama invested in a series of phonics records and taught me to read. Phonetically, of course, so I'd read road signs from the huge, green Chrysler and pronounce "beverages" as "beaver ages" and "antiques" as "anti cues." Still, it was enough, back in those days of ability grouping in public schools, that I was alone in my reading group (though I was still the kid counting out dried beans from a can when we were learning to add double-digits) until I was in the third grade.

It was in Mrs. Russ's class in 1977. It was reading time and I was sequestered in my corner with "The Wind in the Willows," when my teacher interrupted me to let me know I had a new reading partner. His name was not Scotty, but that's what I'm going to call him.

Scotty was a skinny little kid with brown hair that wouldn't behave. He had blue eyes and wore a "Keep on Truckin'" tee-shirt. When he sat down and started reading aloud with me, I was smitten and couldn't keep my place on the pages because I was trying to sneak glances at him. Rat and Mole who? What were we talking about? I was eight years old and completely flustered.

I can probably blame some of my math deficiency on the fact that all I could think about was reading group with Scotty.

When we moved up to middle school the next year, Scotty and I shared the same classes. I did everything in my power to sit next to him. We all went to the skating rink on the weekends, and I dreamed of couple-skating with him to Peaches and Herb or Kool and the Gang, and my heart got broken every weekend when it didn't happen. Other girls were starting to notice how adorable he was as he grew out of his awkwardness, something I'd known from the get-go.

Scotty became the class clown, the first to acquire an arrow-through-the-head prop a la Steve Martin. By sixth grade, he was wearing a clip-on tie with his tee-shirts at school. I adored him, leaning in to smell him every time he talked to me, which was daily, as I was his smart/funny buddy. 

"Do you think I should ask so-and-so to go with me?" he'd confide in me. "Nooooooo! Ask me!!!!" I always thought. "I guess so," I'd always answer, my heart crumbling as I conjured up hate for the other girl in question. "You're a great friend, Leigh Ann," he'd say, exactly the last thing I wanted to hear. But still, it was something, and it was from Scotty to me.

I didn't particularly care about "Star Wars" or "The Empire Strikes Back." But Scotty did. So in eighth grade, I got my Daddy to take me to see "Return of the Jedi" on opening night so I'd have something to talk to Scotty about. "Don't tell me what happens!" he proclaimed the next day, as he hadn't seen it yet. "Wait, tell me how Han Solo gets unfrozen. Wait, don't!" And I loved having his attention all day.

During the summers, I didn't get to see Scotty, but he was always on my mind, giving me reason to look forward to the new school year when we'd be in the same classes again. I especially anticipated art classes: I could draw okay, but Scotty was talented and being in those classes gave me a reason to compliment him. During our junior year in high school, I spent an entire semester drawing images from Pink Floyd's "The Wall" on my pink Converse high-tops because I knew Scotty liked that movie. And when he complimented me, my entire 16-year-old existence was validated.

Scotty went off to train with the National Guard to earn money for college the summer between our junior and senior year. When he came back, he wasn't just the cute, funny, smart guy: He was smoking hot and ripped. My head nearly exploded when I saw him the first day back at school. So, unfortunately, did the heads of the dumb pretty girls who would never have given him the time of day back in middle school, and they recognized him as the catch he'd always been in my eyes.

But I was still his funny little buddy, and we still talked every day and took all the same classes. And I still melted a little bit every time he spoke to me, though I would never have told him.

We were both in drama class, and getting together after school to practice for our play made me giddy, especially when we got out of school to go look for props and got to ride around in my bitchin' Camaro. 

On the night of the play, "Boys and Ghouls Together," a low-rent takeoff on "The Munsters," I played a witch to his innocent schoolboy. I took his arm on stage and was supposed to utter the line, "Drink this, it will make you calm." But in front of God, my parents and everyone, I said, "Drink this, it will make you come." I didn't immediately realize I'd said it, so wrapped up was I in the sheer delight of touching his arm. But Scotty started to snicker, and I turned 15 different shades of red.

Later that night, at our "wrap party" on the beach, he gave me a hug and assured me my flub was hysterical and nobody else had noticed. Then he went off to kiss and hold hands with the cheerleader who played a bit part. 

A month later, we graduated from high school, becoming unleashed forever from our small beach town into colleges and futures far away. Scotty wrote in my yearbook: "Hey, Sweetness! You've been great all these years. You leave me speechless. You're a very rare type of person and you've got loads of talent! Remember me when you publish your first book (cover art?)! You're going to go far, baby -- don't forget me. I love you, Scotty!"

He drew some bricks and wrote "Pink Floyd Forever!" But he called me baby and said he loved me!! And I read it over and over, reading more into it than was there. Sigh.

I went away and never came back. Scotty came back after college, married a local girl and started a family. My mama ran into him seven years ago and he asked about me. My mama said, "She was always in love with you."

"Oh my god you didn't tell him that!," I screamed over the phone after she told me, reverting back to the gawky girl I was even though I was well into my 30s. I was mortified. "He said he never knew it," she replied. And I decided I could never go home again on the off-chance I would run into Scotty after all these years.

Unfortunately, one of our best friends and classmates was killed in a car accident three years ago. Steve and I were newlyweds and he never got to meet my friend, but he went down to the funeral to support me through my grief. As he, my best friend April, my parents and I approached the Lutheran Church, I saw Scotty. "Crap," I thought, "He knows I liked him."

But when we approached him, he swept me up in a big hug of greetings and mutual heartache. "Scotty, it's so good to see you," I said as we embraced. Then I introduced him to my "stusband Heve." 

Back in the studio at work the following Monday, I related that story to my two best girls, both graphic designers. "He got old and fat, didn't he?" one asked. "No, he actually looks just like Jason Bateman," I replied. "He's probably got a loser job," the other suggested. "He's a graphic designer." They both swooned, and one doesn't like boys in that way.

For the love of all that is holy, does there ever come a point in a woman's life when she doesn't go knock-kneed in front of a girlhood crush? I think I could shoot the breeze with Nick Rhodes from Duran Duran without a care in the world now, but Scotty from Shallotte still gives me a lump in the throat.

Just like the thought of Donna from Northampton still gives Steve a lump in the throat, so we're even.