2006-11-14
high horses and coping mechanisms
|I got knocked off my high horse the other day. I was feeling all thin and sassy so I tried on a jacket at Target. But once I had it on, I had to look for a mirror. So I moseyed through the clothes racks over to a mirror that was being used by another woman.
She's the one who knocked me out of my saddle. She doesn't know it, though. She was quite gracious in sharing the mirror with me.
She was also trying on a jacket. But she looked like she was in her 40s and she was pretty thin. She wasn't anorexic, but she had a cute figure and the jacket she tried on looked really cute, too.
My image, in the mirror next to hers, looked pretty gargantuan.
That's when I quietly took off the jacket and returned it to the hanger. I didn't need to spend $17.99 anyway.
***
A couple weeks ago I took my kid to a Halloween/birthday party which was attended by about 25 children and their parents. Somehow, almost all of the parents (mostly mothers) were really high-maintenance yuppie types. And one of the mothers asked me if I worked outside the home.
I said no, I'm home full-time with my three kids.
And then she said, "Did you go to college?"
I caught my mouth from dropping to the floor and answered yes, indeed, I did go to college. In fact, I graduated from Michigan State with a degree in journalism. I worked for ten years before quitting to stay home with my children. Thanks for asking.
So, that made me feel really great.
And then I started thinking about people, like that woman, who are obviously insecure and need to put other people down to make themselves feel good. That's when I stumbled upon a thought that made ME feel good. I imagined that woman who was a *scientist*, no less, taking a crap.
Yes, that's right. I imagined her sitting on the can, hemorrhoids protesting, while she attempted to lay some cable. That made me feel better immediately and I didn't have to put her down (verbally) to do it.
I think most of us have heard of that little trick of imagining your audience in their underwear to calm your nerves. I think my idea works a little better. You see, in my imagination, most of those high maintenance chicks look like Victoria Secret models, and that doesn't make me feel any better. It just makes me feel like I should have run on the treadmill for an hour this morning.
But if I imagine Tyra Banks taking a dump, that makes me feel better.
2006-11-14 at 4:56 p.m.
