Short Stories

I'm trying to remember instances in life where I stuck up for myself, as it is a rare occurrence. Since the 'incident' with the a-hole attorney last week, I thought about other times where I was pushed to a new limit or did something out of the ordinary. A few came to mind...

I feel as though this is a repeat story, but it's one of my favorites, so bare with me. It was a hot summer day, right before the start of 8th grade. Very awkward time in my life. I got made fun of a lot for being short/ugly/pale, etc. One person that really picked on me a lot was a guy named John Grau. Every day at summer camp, he'd say something mean to me. We were sitting at lunch outside one day and he started in on me. The only comment I can really remember was that he said I had "bullet-proof hair". Now, I still don't know what the hell that meant, but I do remember looking at my soggy Arby's Italian sub (with all the ingredients; mustard, mayonnaise, lettuce, tomatoes, and greasy sliced deli meats). I launched the sandwich at John's head; it slapped him upside the face. He had to take a shower before they would let him in the pool. He had pepperoni in his hair. It was awesome. And very unlike me. :)
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Once, I was sitting in the passenger seat of my friend Sara's car at Sonic. I glanced at the car next to us where a family was eating dinner. The daughter in the back seat- a girl probably in late middle school and old enough to know better- threw the wrapper from her straw out the window. I got out of the car and threw it back in her window. Littering pisses me off! Apparently more that day than normal.
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Right before Casey and I moved to South Carolina, I got tickets to go to the Counting Crows/John Mayer concert. I was pretty stoked because they are two of my favorite music groups. (Okay, so John Mayer's not actually a group. I'm too tired to try to figure out what word I want to use. Forgive me.) ANYWAY. Seems like every time I go to a concert, no matter where I'm seated, I ALWAYS get the tallest people in front of me. My equally vertically-challenged friend Tiffany and I were determined to make the most of this concert, so you can imagine our reactions when a tall (or maybe average-height... who knows) girl and her friend run up right in front of us. We really didn't want to start anything with them, so I tried to approach the situation by getting their attention and politely asking them to move over since we had lawn 'seats' and had a little more freedom to move around. Instead, one of the girls glares at me, moves directly in front of me, and starts laughing about it with her friend. I will also say that my favorite song, Mr. Jones, started playing right before this happened, so it made me extra angry. Without thinking, I yell out to the girl, "Wow, you're a bitch!" Then as quickly as I said it, I realized what I'd said, and waited to get punched in the face. Luckily the girl was equally surprised, and actually moved over. Good thing, too, because if she would have swung at me, I would have been too shocked to do anything back.
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Recently (read last week) our friend Aaron was visiting and we decided to take Charley on a walk. We went into a part of our subdivision we had never been to before. Suddenly, two dogs run up to us and start barking at Charley. The smaller one starts snapping at Charley and nipping him on his legs. Charley's a wimp, God love him, so he didn't try to defend himself. I guess seeing Charley get bit made my Mom instinct kick in, because I jumped in between the two dogs and started charging at the little dog to get it off him. I'm sure it looked ridiculous, and Casey was none too happy with me because I could have gotten hurt, but at the time I really didn't care. You don't mess with my boy!! Luckily the dog ran away and CB and I came away without any real injuries... besides maybe to the ego.
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I hope you enjoyed these random examples of me sticking up for myself/doing foolish things but having a positive outcome. More to come, of course.

-Ash