Monday, May 2, 2011

9:05 PM

Am I Catching "Hipster"?

Ahoy mateys!

I have a confession to make.

It's difficult for me to admit this to anyone, but...

I've fallen in love with *instagram*.


It's a app that allows you to take pictures with your iPhone and then enhance the photos by changing the color gradation or adding borders.

downloadsquad
It's totally hipster.

this image brought to you by the magical instagram tumbler

I hate hipsters. But even though I try, I can't hate *instagram*. It's the same way I feel about tumblr. It's silly. It doesn't require any talent. I don't even own an iPhone!


But it's so addictive!

I've been traveling for the last two weeks straight and writing cool new entries for you by hand as I ride trains and sit in hotel rooms and listen to acquaintances wax on and on about aspects of their lives I care nothing about.

During one of these trips one of my friends handed me an iPhone to try out their new *instagram* app.

It was like the skies parted. Glitter exploded. Puppies were born. Rainbows appeared. The world shifted.

So you're probably thinking, "So what Abernathy--what does this have to do with The Point?"

Let me tell you.

Today's point is this: I need to find someone who will pay me to travel the world (or at the least the US) and take *instagram* pics. Obviously, this currently unknown someone will also buy me an iPhone.

I know I sound just a teensy bit crazy, but my idea is not that far out of this world. NPR, Starbucks, Levis Brasil and Pepsi Max all use *instagram* to reach their consumers these days. Who's next?


Friends, I've found my calling. Now how the fuck do I make it a reality?
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Friday, April 15, 2011

5:00 PM

There's About to Be a Girlfight

Ahoy friends!

It was eighty-two degrees last weekend here in the southeast! SUMMER IS COMING! I'm so excited, I could cry. Heat means tank tops and cold beers and sparklers and short skirts and--the holiday that inspired this blog--Pride weekend!!!!!!!!!!

Let's just take a minute to bask in the excitement of what I am sure will be the epic summer of 2011.

martianwho
Whew.

Now on to this week's story...


There's About to Be a Girlfight

You may not believe this, but when I was growing up, I got into a lot of fights. A LOT. I know I seem like a pretty amazing and chillaxed little lady now, but it took me a while to get here.

The last fight I ever got into took place in college between me and a girl who went by the nickname of Caca. Yeah, I can't make this shit up.

Pun intended.

Would you like me to tell you about it?

Of course you would! Why else would you be on my blog?!

startswithabang
Check this out:

My senior year of college, my four best friends and I lived on the fourth floor of a historic dormitory with no elevator. This being the case, each floor of the building was cut in half by the building's large echoing stairwell. I can't tell you how many nights I found my way to my dormitory after a party and crawled up the stairs on all fours while I cried about the unfairness of buildings without elevators. But those are stories for another time...

Thanks to the stairwell from hell, my friends and I were able to secure the west half of the fourth floor for only ourselves and our guests. We ran around at all hours of night and day in various stages of undress and rarely closed our bedroom doors. All of this transparency was somewhat jarring to our friends visiting from other dorms: everyone on our hall knew in seconds if a guest was in our space and we treated our guests' privacy the way we treated our own--we gave them none.

mkmcd
One of my friends, Toga, regularly tutored her teammates on the basketball team in an effort to keep their GPAs high enough to allow the girls to play. Being a division three school, we had to require our athletes keep their GPAs at or above a minimum--it's not like any of them were going to go pro and make a living off of their insane athletic skills. On the night this fateful event took place, Caca was working her way through a project with Toga.

Now, I should probably tell you that I've never liked Caca. I had met her when she first arrived on campus earlier in the year. Caca was from my hometown and, because of her involvement on the basketball team, I knew she would be one of the few other girls of color to interact heavily in my social circle. I needed her to be classy.
After Ellen
What I got was a girl wearing skintight American-flag red sweat pants (three sizes too small) who told me that she was assembling her entourage to come to all of her games as she was the best basketball player in the region (a vast exaggeration). It took me about 5 minutes to glean this information from the text messaging language she'd found some way to convert into a spoken language brimming with "witchu," "grlchunow," and curse words.

Needless to say, I was not excited about Toga tutoring Caca on our hall. But, due to my love for Toga and the rest of the basketball team, I decided to avoid Caca during her tutoring session. I stayed in my room and did my yoga. Then I wrapped myself in a towel and headed for the communal showers, figuring that by the time I finished bathing, Caca would be gone.

My timing was nearly perfect. Caca was just exiting Toga's room as I left the showers. When Caca saw me in my towel, she paused before smiling and said, "I'm gonna fight witchu."

I laughed. "Okay, whatever."

"Naw gurl," she said more forcefully. "I'm bout to fight witchu." I looked her over and saw the weight in her stance. She wasn't joking.

"Alright," I acquiesced. "Let me put on some clothes."

"No."

"Underwear."

"No," she shouted and pushed me backwards into a fire extinguisher bolted to the wall. Let me tell you something: THAT FUCKING HURT.

I wrapped one hand around my chest to hold my towel in place and aimed a right hook at Caca's face: no one touches me without paying for it. The hit connected and Caca shouted, "Oh fuck you!"
domo

She aimed for my face and I ducked. She went for my throat and pushed me against the fire extinguisher again, choking me. I clawed around--losing my towel in the process. I finally grabbed Caca's braids and yanked her head backwards. By then she was screaming and cursing.  I was so angry that I slammed her head into the wall twice.

The whole thing lasted about 30 seconds.

I stepped back from Caca, picked up my towel and wrapped it around myself. Lost in all of the adrenaline and emotions pumping through my body, I started to laugh. The hall was filled with my friends, who had apparently witnessed the whole fight. They all looked at Caca and I nervously. Caca saw their faces and began laughing with me. My hall mates continued to look uncomfortable, but laughed lightly, trying to figure out what was so funny.

The look on their faces made me feel sick to my stomach. "I'm going to go put on clothes." I said to no one in particular. I went into my room, slammed my door and began to cry. I called my friend Mae, who lived in another dorm and explained the whole thing between sobs and sniffles.

"Fuck." She said, "Sweetheart, that's terrifying."

"I know," I wailed, "Who does she think she is? A first-year challenging a senior to a physical fight!? While I was in my toweeeeeeel!?"

"Well yes, but I think you're missing the point: you two could have killed each other. She could have broken your back and you could have split her head open. You're pretty fucking lucky that nobody got hurt."
lesuicideblonde
Mae made a valid point and one I hadn't been bright enough to consider on my own.

It kind of scared me.

After that, I resolved not to fight crazy bitches anymore. And so far, so good.

fin

Today's Point: The hippies up the street with the peace signs in their front yard may have a legitimate point.
indybay
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Monday, April 4, 2011

8:48 PM

Go Shawty, It's Your Birthday

Ahoy!

You guys, every time I watch the Runaways I feel all crazy inside because K. Stew looks *so hot* as Joan Jett. Seriously, she spends ninety minutes running around in leather and doing all sorts of bad-ass things--starting a rock band, getting high on an airplane, peeing on some douche's guitar, smashing her recording studio, lying around in underwear and playing with her guitar...it's swaggerific.

The only part of the film that pulls me out of K.Stew Land is the scene where she gets it on with Dakota Fanning. I know that D. Fan is totally grown up now, but she still seems little to me and I get all sorts of wigged out watching her in a sex scene.

FACT
The first time I watched the Runaways, I jumped up at that scene and said, "Wait! Is D. Fan old enough to have crazy roller-skate sex with K. Stew?"

Maybe I was just jealous.
OH SHE GLOWS

Either way, this brings up a good topic of discussion: when are kids "old enough" to be involved in sexual situations? 15? 16? 18?

Obviously, kids will do what they want when they want, but at what age do those of us over 20 look at teenagers and not think, "Gosh, you're too young to do all of that?"

I sure as hell don't know. I figure the best way for us to learn is to investigate a scene from my high school days.


Go Shawty, It's Your Birthday

My senior year of high school, one of the girls in my class turned 18. Since she was the first one of us to reach that milestone, my friends and I decided to do it big. 

We wanted to hire a stripper.

We discussed the idea with enthusiasm, trying to figure out how our friend would react, how much the stripper would cost and what he would say during the party. However, it quickly became apparent that our plan had some major obstacles:
  1. The birthday party would be at our friend's parents' house. We assumed her parents wouldn't look too kindly upon a stripper showing up at the front door.
  2. None of us were 18 yet, so we couldn't technically hire a stripper.
  3. We didn't have enough money to pay for a decent stripper. We'd heard tales of female strippers with Cesarean scars and though we didn't know what the equivalent of that would be for a male stripper, we didn't want to find out.
WE HEART IT (APPARENTLY VIA FACEBOOK)
Fortunately for this story and all of you reading it, my friends and I were a creative bunch and we came up with a backup plan. One of the girls in the group had a younger brother... and there was a dollar store that sold Halloween costumes right down the street from our school. Rather than hire a stripper, we were going to make our own.

The night of the party, we were pumped. While the sister of our stripper-to-be went home to pick up her brother, I corralled a group of five party guests to join me on the trip to the dollar store. We got there and realized that we had to make a serious decision: would our stripper be a fire fighter or policeman? Which would be the better stripper?

The amount of time we spent debating this decision is longer than I care to admit. Everyone had serious opinions on the matter, but eventually the fireman enthusiasts won out.

The costume department met up with the stripper-to-be outside of the birthday girl's house just as the party was beginning. The kid. was. awesome! We showed him the fireman's hat, the yellow fireman's jacket and the giant badge we'd purchased for the occasion and before we had finished talking, he was coming up with ideas to make the outfit even better.

DELLBBY
Half an hour later, the fireman's jacket had become a vest with ripped sleeves, a neon orange scarf functioned as a fire hose and our stripper had been sprayed with enough axe body spray to drown a frat house. We were ready!

First, the six or so party goers went into the house. We scoped out the party and layout, said hi to the birthday girl and found a cd with decent music for the main event. Two of us then went outside "for a cigarette" and primed our stripper. The party was in the attic. All we had to do was get the kid through the door, cut across the living room and then he'd be up the stairs and on the birthday girl. All we needed was to wait for a sign that the adults in the house were momentarily distracted.

CUTE OBSESSION
We only had to wait a few minutes before the lights in the living room began to blink on and off. Taking it as our sign, we ran into the house and shoved our stripper through the living room and kitchen. Someone upstairs cut the music and I heard the birthday girl yell, "Hey what's going on?" Within seconds a loud, raunchy pop song began to fill the attic. I pushed our stripper up the stairs, "it's time!"

It. Was. Amazing. The kid sauntered up the stairs and into the attic, rolling and rocking his hips to the music. The birthday girl was sitting on the floor and he stood over her, straddling her legs. He dropped down to the ground so that he was very nearly face-to-face with her and then popped his back and hopped back up. I'm not sure someone we paid could have done any better.

At this point, the birthday girl's face was flushed and she was giggling nervously and looking around like, "What the fuck?" The kid kept dancing around: he pulled off his fireman's vest/jacket, he wrapped the "hose" around the birthday girl's neck and pulled her close, he sat in the air just above her lap and ground his pelvis. It was raunchy.
TTTTRUCK
When it ended, everyone high-fived our stripper and sent him downstairs to wash up and put his shirt back on.

The six of us who orchestrated the striptease surrounded the birthday girl; "So, what did you think?"

She shook her head, "Isn't that Kim's little brother?"

"Yeah!" We shouted, "Wasn't he wonderful?"

The birthday girl cocked her head to the side, "Isn't he thirteen? You guys, I'm pretty sure that was totally illegal. Also, I think you are all kind of sick."

fin

In the spirit of full disclosure: The stripper and I became close friends. He's actually a drag queen now and we joke about that striptease every time we see each other. The birthday girl and I are not friends anymore because, apparently, I have no morals.

So. What did you guys think of the story? It was a doozy, wasn't it? Is there anything to be learned from this experience? Were we in the wrong or just kids having fun? Share your thoughts below! 
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Saturday, March 26, 2011

12:50 PM

The Emerald City

Ahoy y'all,

I don't know about you, but I have a huge issue with jealousy. I get jealous of all sorts of ridiculous things, but the aspect of my jealousy which really gets me into trouble is when I get jealous of my friends' time. I don't like people often, but when I do, I want them around often. And when my time is cut into by a sport, job, new friend, or significant other I get angry. Typically, if the entity stealing my time is a sport or job, I suck it up because it would be silly to act out. If it's a new friend, I either play nice and let the thief get jealous or I wage a war of wills. The latter option doesn't always end well.

Now that my friends and I are (almost) all twenty-somethings, the time stealing sluts tend to be significant others. Luckily, I've found a stellar way of dealing with this:

FuckYeahKissing
I bag the significant other as my new bestie.

It's like a twisted and wonderful yet subtle form of revenge when your friends complain that you're too close to their significant other. That's my opportunity to scream "now you know how I feel" and play the victim and complain about the loss of me + friends quality time just because they've found someone to sleep with on a regular basis.

Sometimes I wonder why people put up with my antics.

Unfortunately, my friends usually get the last word: when they choose to end relationships I have to deal with their depression and the loss of a new bestie.

One of my best examples of this hails from college. I had this wonderful stoner friend--let's call her Ella. Ella was dating Jack, a guy from a neighboring school. Jack was probably the easiest significant other bestie  I'd ever made. That boy taught me how to work a peace correctly and from that moment on, we were Mary Jane soul mates. Jack used to show up to campus, drop his stuff in Ella's room, and find me so we could get our munchies on. To give Ella credit, she wasn't so much jealous of my relationship with Jack as she was mystified by our dedication to our shared hobby. I hate smoking and Jack hates sharing, but somehow, between the two of us, it all worked out.

Fast forward to spring. Summer's approaching and as we're getting ready to go take exams and pack up our school year lives, Ella snags me for a heart to heart. That's when she drops the bomb: she's dumping Jack. She's maturing and he's not, she's focused on school and he's not, she's got goals and he doesn't. Basically, she's over it. Jack won't be on campus anymore and she'd appreciate it if I don't invite him 'round because she doesn't want to know where he goes from here.

My 'lil heart was broken.
TheSecretIsOut
And I never saw the kid again.

Is there a lesson to be learned from my loss of Jack and countless other significant other besties over the years?

Of course there is: if my friends would just keep pockets of time booked for me whether they are in relationships or not, they wouldn't have to get jealous when I befriend their significant others and I wouldn't have to childishly complain about missing said significant other while my friend is trying to survive a serious breakup.
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Friday, March 4, 2011

8:41 AM

We're All In This Together

Ahoy bitches,


Don't get offended. I use bitches as a term of endearment.

Do you know what I love? I love when I come upon the chance to do something sketchy with other people. You know, it doesn't seem quite as sketchy to pull the hinges from a door to get into a forbidden room if there are six people involved. Lighting a cement post on fire? Almost normal if fifteen girls are doing it. And talking your friend's little brother into stripping at a classmate's birthday bash is totally not weird if four other people help you decide between the firefighter and policeman costumes.
www.manopedia.com 
(Firefighters always win with male strippers. Girls make great policewomen though!)

The only negative aspect of group sketchiness is that, sometimes, I become a participant unwillingly. And that's when sketchy becomes risky...


We're All In This Together

So. It was my senior year of college and I needed a break. Seriously, being on a campus of 700 or so all the time and seeing the same people day in and day out can be kind of intense.

Arla could see that I was cracking (I'd begun waking up at 10am to watch Judge Judy and drink Natty Light in my underwear until my classes began at 1pm) and so she suggested we go on a road trip. We needed somewhere we could get to in an hour or less because, lezbi-honest, I couldn't go longer than that without a drink. I called up an older friend of ours, Breana,  who had graduated the year before, and within a few minutes we had a place to stay in a neighboring city and the promise of a crazy night out at the local gay bar.

Sweeeeeeeet.
furryelephants.tumblr.com
(This is my fantasy. The bar was no where near this fancy.)


Classes ended at 4:30 P.M.  so Arla and I rolled up to Breana's home around 6 on a Friday. Of course we began drinking right away. Breana had invited a few friends over and they were more than happy to help us drink our cares away. After a few rounds of Kings, Arla and I were sufficiently tipsy. Breana loaded us into her car and we began the journey to the bar.

In the backseat, I began pulling mini-bottles of Captain Morgan's out of my purse. To this day, I don't think I can tell you how I got them. I'm sure it was sketchy, some way, some how. But however they came to be, I was more than happy to share them with my lesbi-bestie and the two other girls smashed into the backseat with us. When we hit the bar half an hour later, the whole backseat was on cloud fucking nine.

Throughout the night, Arla and I rotated the beer-buying duties. Luckily for us, this was a complete dive and all beers were only $1.75. Well, all beers but one: Coronas were $2.50. Drunkenly, Arla and I discussed upgrading our Bud Lights, but we decided $2.50 was just too much for a beer.

About half an hour after we made this agreement, I was across the bar from Arla, dancing with some old guy and his glow-in-the dark wands. Straight bars will never match the Whatever Goes vibe of gay bars. Suddenly, Arla begins walking towards me with a big grin on her face. In her hand was a beautiful, sweating, cold, fizzing Corona. "I got that hot chick to buy it for us," she said, nodding towards an middle-aged woman in leather pants. "Riiiiiiight..." I took a swig and felt the delicious chill of fresh-from-the-icebox-beer roll down the inside of my back before I gave the bottle back to Arla.

"Actually," Arla continued, "that woman agreed to buy it for us, but then some guy just handed me his. He said he didn't drink from it though." I began to respond, but Arla had even more to say, "My mom always told me not to drink beverages provided by strangers because they might be drugged. That's why I'm sharing this with you. If we get raped, at least we'll go through it together."
A Little Princess (you already knew that, right?!)

You've. Got. To. Be. Shitting. Me.

That's what you're thinking right?!

Because that's totally what I was thinking.

So I said as much.


"No," Arla smiled and put her arm on my shoulder, "I really love you enough to do that. I would never make you go through anything alone." I examined Arla's face for some sign that she was joking, but that girl was drunk and she sincerely thought I was thanking her for (possibly) sharing a horrible roofied future with her.

I grabbed her arm, excused myself from the man with the wands, and dragged Arla through the bar until I found Breana. "You've got to take us home NOW." I told her.

I was just finishing the recount of Arla's logic to Breana when Arla began hugging the older man behind me. Breana and I exchanged a look of confusion before Arla explained, "This is the man who gave us the beer!"

fin

To answer any questions: Yes, we left the bar. No, no one messed with us. And Arla only barely remembered her actions the next morning, so I couldn't be as angry with her as I wanted to be.

Now, what would you say was the point of this ridiculousness? Suggest away in the comments.
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Sunday, February 20, 2011

7:52 PM

The Bucket List

Ahoy mateys!


We're not on a boat or anything, but it's my new thing to greet people with "Ahoy!" because nobody else does it. I like to think it keeps me lookin' awesome. That, or people just assume that I'm really weird. It's a risk I'm willing to take.


How are you all?


Done with winter and ready for tank tops and espadrilles? Are you counting down the days until the ice cream man reappears and you can run after the truck with all of the six-year-olds on the street? Do you want to put on suntan lotion and lie around in the itchy summer grass soaking in sunshine?


If you answered, Yes, Yes, and Yes thank you for confirming that I am not the only twenty-something professional in America who still chases the ice cream truck.


Anyways, today I want to talk to you all about boobs. Breasts. Tits. Ta-tas. Bazookas. Melons. The Girls. Cleavage. Chesticles.




Being a lez, I'm sure you think that I have tons of great experiences with breasts. But my experiences with any breasts other than my own have been disastrous. One story in specific stands out. It's not a sexy story or a gay story. It's a weird story with a surprise ending. Are you ready?


The Bucket List

During the last few weeks of my senior year in college, two of my nearest and dearest friends decided to create a bucket list. I don't know how or why they decided to do this, but over the course of a week, they compiled the most idiotic, entertaining, and scandalous bucket list I've ever seen. 

The list required that the two girls--my lesbi-besti, Arla, and my constantly politically incorrect friend, Kimya--push someone into a bush, play flip cup in the crowded dining hall and tabletop someone (push someone backwards super hard so that they fall and hit their ass...or head. It's legitimately not safe.) among other things.


Because I was considered the best friend of both Kimya and Arla, I figured that there was no effing way I would be targeted for any of their schemes. I even participated in a few of the items on their list, hoping they might see me as co-conspirator and leave me alone. I volunteered to bring a few Solo cups and cans of Natty Light to the dining hall one night to make the illegal flip cup tournament a reality. I watched them throw the same girl into a bush twice. I even let them demonstrate tabletopping techniques to me and pretended to care.


So you can imagine my surprise when two days later, Kimya turned her malicious attention on me. 
rafaaafrrrk
It happened like this: Arla and I were throwing yet another bangin' party on our hall. My handmade beer pong table was out and surrounded by tipsy ladies oogling the design--rainbows! a false bible quote: "God Loves Love" (from Genesis 2:6 obvs)! and a powder blue background! The table's co-designer, Dot, was standing beside me helping measure beer and set out cups for an epic game of pong. 


I was so distracted by the insane amount of people in the hall that I didn't notice that Arla and Kimya had disappeared from the party. Just as Dot and I finished setting up the table and breaking the crowd into teams, Kimya showed up. She opened her arms and walked towards me. "Hey! You can play on my team!" I told her. I put out my arms too, thinking she was attempting to hug me. At the very last second before we made contact, Kimya pulled her right breast out of her shirt and slapped me full on in the face with her boob.


You weren't expecting that were you?


Nor was I.


And let me tell you: IT HURT.
by Young Prism


Kimya has double Ds. Her breasts are gigantic. 


After she hit me, I just stood in the middle of the hallway in shock. Everybody was laughing but me. I was just taking it in. 


That's when I tasted blood. Kimya had hit me so hard with her gigantic breast that she'd busted my lip and I was bleeding into my mouth. It was fucking disgusting. I rushed into the bathroom and locked myself in a stall so everyone would leave me alone. It was a classic throw back to middle school.


Angela Chase basically taught me to hide the bathroom in the '90s



From the safety of the stall, I could hear Kimya yelling, "Number 14 on the list has been accomplished!" 


"You wanted to smack a girl in the face with your tit?" Someone asked in response.


"Well not necessarily a girl, but I always wondered if I could smack someone with my boobs and now I know I can."


I was starting to brood in my bathroom stall. I mean, seriously--who does that? Luckily, a knock on the door saved me from hearing anymore of Kimya's celebration in the hall. "Abernathy?"


"What?" I asked, recognizing the voice immediately. It was Julia, the same friend who keeps the photographs of me on Four Loko under locks. 


"Are you still bleeding?" I pulled a tissue away from my lips. It was speckled red.


"Affirmative." 


"Come out here. Let me look at you." Julia plans on being a nurse so she's all about making sure people are okay. Unfortunately, I hate being doted on.


"I'm fine," I told her, finally exiting the stall. 


Kimya walked into the bathroom, took one look at my swelling lip and begin laughing. 


I didn't talk to her again for weeks.


fin

For those of you who may be wondering, Kimya and I are cool now. We just don't talk about her breasts anymore. EVER.

So, the point of today's story was...

Tell me in the comments!
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Sunday, January 30, 2011

6:22 PM

Is There An Exit Wound?

Hello everyone!


So, I know that I haven't shared this with you all yet, but I have a history of corrupting kids. I mean, I did--back when I was a kid. Now I'm 23 and I don't corrupt anyone because that calls for a serious investment of will, which I am too lazy to deal with. I either deal with sweet people, or I find people who are already corrupted and make them be my friends.

Today's tale is the oldest tale I've shared thus far and it involves a tag-team corruption of my little sister. 



Is There An Exit Wound?

When I was about 7 years old, I spent all of my time with my sisters: Charlotte was 5, Corrina was 3, and Sue was 1. Sue was too young to play any good games, but Charlotte, Corrina, and I were inseparable. 

from http://blog.franchesca.net/

We played a million different games: princesses locked in the tower, raising the babies, teenage mutant ninja turtles, and slugs (which was just the three of us fighting over who could catch the most slugs while we were crawling around under the back porch). We were disgusting and girly and wonderful.

At the time we lived in this two-story house with three bedrooms, all of which were upstairs. One belonged to my parents, one was for me and my sisters, and the other was a guest bedroom. The guest bedroom was really our playroom. My mom wouldn't let us keep our toys in there, but we would drag them out of the toy box and into the guest room everyday. It was huge and clean and perfect for staging elaborate plays and Barbie dramas.

There is one day in particular that stands out. My mom was downstairs cleaning the house while Charlotte, Corrina, and I were playing "olden times" in the guest room. We were wearing long flower print and gingham dresses we'd gotten at Goodwill and pretending to be respectable young ladies. We also had an old rotary phone we were using to call each other and invite one another over to our houses to "take tea in the parlor."

Half way through peppermint tea at Corrina's mansion, Charlotte cocked her head to the side and said, "I wonder if that old phone still works."

"It does," I told her. "It's just not plugged in."

"Are you sure?" Charlotte asked, eyeing the lack of cords on the phone skeptically.

"Of course I am." I told her. I am the oldest sister, and more often than not, I say things just to seem like I know what I'm talking about--whether or not I actually do.

"Prove it," Charlotte countered.

Corrina's head whipped back and forth like she was watching a tennis match as Charlotte and I discussed the status of the rotary phone. She had the receiver in her hand and looked unsure of what to do with it as we argued.

"There's a small white cord on the back," I told Charlotte, "plug it in." The electrical cord still on the phone had been cut short by my parents in an effort to discourage us from trying to actually use the phone to call anyone. 

But alas, girls will be girls.
Little Miss Sunshine!!!!!!!

"It doesn't have the end on it," Charlotte pointed out.

"Well I know it works, so I don't have to do it." I told her, knowing full well we probably shouldn't plug the shorn cord phone into any electrical outlet.

Now, I don't know which of us first suggested we ask Corrina to plug in the phone, but soon enough, she became our target. "Corrina," we said, "you're a big girl now! You're allowed to plug things in. You can do it."

Corrina glowed when we called her a big girl--Charlotte and I were forever telling her she was practically a baby--just like Sue. She smiled and didn't argue with us. Without a hesitation, Corrina pulled the phone over to the wall and jammed the short length of cord into the outlet nearest her.

There was a loud pop and the room filled with smoke. Charlotte and I began screaming. The air smelled dirty, like something had caught fire. Corrina's hair jutted out from her head in crazy angles and she cried as though her heart was on fire.

My mom rushed into the room and found Corrina sitting by the wall, phone still in hand. "Abernathy, Charlotte: get Sue and get into the car NOW."

My mother pulled Corrina into her arms and carried her out of the house and into the car. I don't even think we were all in our carseats and seat belts before my mother was peeling out of the driveway, rushing to the emergency room on the Air Force Base where my dad worked. During the ride, she kept saying, "I can't believe you two would do that. You know better. You could have killed your sister."

When we arrived, my mother scooped Corrina out of the car and ran into the hospital, screaming, "she's been electrocuted!" Corrina was crying and a nurse immediately rushed to my mother to take her back into an examining room.

Charlotte, Sue and I were left in the waiting room to fend for ourselves.

The funny thing about military bases, is that you always seem to run into people you know on them. One of my mom's friends from her military wives group saw the three of us sitting around and--upon bullying why were there out of the receptionist--decided to watch us for the hour my mom was in the heart of the hospital with Corrina.

This is probably one of the few times in my life that I've behaved well while being stuck in stuck in one place for longer than 40 consecutive minutes. Sunday mass? That's a joke. Class? I can't tell you how many professors gave me B's just because I passed notes during lecture or showed up with a thermos of Baileys one too many times. And I've been threatened with being kicked out of movie theaters more times than I can count.

But on this particular occasion, the fear of my mother's wrath was enough of a sedative for me. All I could think about was the whipping Charlotte and I were destined for when we got home.

from Russian facebook

I wasn't for a second worried Corrina wouldn't be okay: when you're seven, bad things are beyond you.

When my mom finally emerged, Corrina was holding her hand and nervously holding a lollipop. "They couldn't find an exit wound." My mom said, "so the doctor says she wasn't electrocuted because she'd have to have an exit wound to survive."

"No mommy," Charlotte told her, "you didn't see her hair. She did get electrocuted."

"Are you filled with electricity then?" I asked Corrina.

"No, Abernathy!" My mom scolded.

"Whoa," Charlotte was looking at Corrina in a whole new way, "maybe you're magic."

"Whoa." I repeated.

When we got home, Charlotte and I got sent to our room. My dad got home a few hours later, and he ended up scolding us for quite a while. He took away all of our toys, but we didn't get spanked. When I asked my mom about it years later, she said that she and my father didn't spank us because they were afraid they'd kill us.

Only half of me thinks she was joking.

fin

The point of today's story is......
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