The Rise and Fall of V.A. Givens
Your lowest point of humiliation will occur between the ages of six and eighteen.
I’m throwing those numbers out there because the concept of shame is foreign to a preschooler, and by the time you’re eighteen, it’s taken a backseat to the mantra “ish happens.”* But at some point during those thirteen years of life in the middle, you’re gonna take a blow that’ll embarrass the hell out of you and make you wish you were no longer a member of the living.
And if you think I’m wrong, ask yourself: how many two-year-olds have you seen running around, whining and crying over the fact that their Huggies were caught on camera after their dress accidentally slid up during the family Christmas photo? And how many honestly care if you put it on YouTube?
I’ll be bold and guess none, because like I said, two-year-olds have no shame. My own niece was the proud neighborhood exhibitionist—throwing up her shirt and flashing her stuff at every car that passed by the house. And since she was only three at the time, I’m really hoping it’s not an indication of her future marketable skills (note to brother-in-law: hide the pole).
Now, fast-forward ten years: the Huggies have turned into big girl panties, the dress is a skirt that got tucked into said panties after a trip to the bathroom, and her left butt cheek is now forever memorialized in her school dance photo album. Yep, that level of “my life is over” mortification has just jumped up a few notches on the humiliation scale. Bump that—it’s skyrocketed, crashed through the ceiling, is circling the cosmos somewhere, and that poor girl will still cringe at the memory when she’s forty and sending her own daughter off to the junior prom.
And now throw on another seven years, add a couple of squares of toilet paper into the mix for funsies, stick a beer in one hand, and slap a crowded frat party in the background. Okay, she’ll be a little embarrassed in the morning after the hangover wears off. And yeah, her friends will ride her about it until the next party, when some other lightweight takes the crown for The Most F’d Up After One Drink award. But you know what? She’ll get over it, ‘cause ish happens, and life moves on after the age of eighteen.
But in those thirteen years in between, even the little things hit you with such intensity. We love hard. Friendships are meant to last forever. The days seem like years, and we always remember them.
So now I’ll tell you about my first big humiliation. I still think about it to this day whenever it rains, I’m wearing a skirt, or I see a cute guy. Take your pick—it doesn’t take much for me flash back to a time when it all went ugly.
My first crush. His name was, oh, let’s say his name was…Javier. Yeah, that’s a good name. Strong, sexy, the kind of name you can just wrap your mouth around and imagine all sorts of naughty things. And he was all of that. His voice set my world on fire every time I heard it, and I don’t know what he put in his Wheaties, but milk really did that body good. Tall, light mustache, beard scruff—and the boy was only in the seventh grade. Ooh, I loved me some Javier.
He, of course, didn’t know it. Oh, huh-uh. My little eighth grade heart would have failed on the spot if he ever found out how much I liked him. To say I was shy would be like saying the sun is warm. Confidence was never a friend of mine, and I was clueless when it came to dealing with the opposite sex. My idea of relating to a boy was either on one of two levels: the asexual friend level, which usually involved me as the go-between for the guy and one of my cute girl friends he wanted to hook up with; or the typical “if I’m really mean to you, treat you like dirt, and possibly even permanently maim you at some point…that means I love you” level. Javier, unfortunately, fell into the second category.
He was in my Spanish class, and I never said more than two words to him. Those two words being: “Shut up.” Okay, make it three words: “Shut up, Javier.”
Whenever he acted up in class (which was often, because that boy didn’t know how to stay out of trouble…which just made me love him more): “Shut up, Javier.”
Whenever he teased one of my friends: “Shut up, Javier.”
Whenever he saw me in the hallway and tried to tease me: “Javier…shut up.”
But, man, I wanted him to like me so bad. Why couldn’t he see how much I yearned for him? I watched every move he made. I knew his class schedule by heart. I knew which girls he talked to, when, and for how long. And believe me, I made a point to find out if any of those girls were interested in him.
No, I wasn’t a stalker. I was just young. And in love.
So the day my mother got me a sweet new outfit (one that didn’t consist of bellbottoms, generic branding, or my sisters’ hand-me-downs), and it made me look like I had stepped right out of the pages of Seventeen, I knew Javier was about to be mine. He was going to take one look at me and recognize what was what. It was the cutest little two-piece ensemble—a fitted red top with a high neck and long, loose sleeves that cinched at the wrist, and a long skirt that hugged my tiny waist and flared at the bottom. Paisley print. And the clincher? She got me a pair of red suede boots, to match.
I. Was. Fierce.
I was so ready to wear that outfit to school, I didn’t even care that it rained the next day. What was a little bad weather in the face of preteen passion? And when I came stepping up into the school with my red suede boots and my red paisley skirt with the matching top, you couldn’t tell me nothing. I felt like the world was mine, and it was time to put that baby in my back pocket where it belonged.
It was just my luck that Javier was one of the first people I saw when I walked in the school. He and a bunch of other guys were lining the wall of the staircase that led up to the second floor where my locker was. And they were all looking at me as I came through the door. Seeing him standing there, the second I entered the school with my new outfit on, just reaffirmed that he was my destiny. I took a deep breath and got ready to strut my stuff.
Past every single one of those boys…
Up the stairs…
Problem. How does a self-conscious, physically awkward girl in brand new shoes that are still wet from the rain walk past a herd of boys, all of whom are staring her down like a lab rat and examining her every movement as she goes up the stairs?
Very, very carefully.
The first step: Just stare straight ahead, nose up in the air, and pretend they’re not there. Don’t let them shake your confidence.
The second step: Oh my God, they’re all watching me. Swing your hip. Swing your hip!
Third step: Okay, you’re passing Javier. Really work it, now. Try to put a twist in it.
Fourth step: I wonder what he thinks of my outfit?
Fifth step: I look so good.
Sixth step: Maybe I’ll talk to him in Spanish class today.
Seventh step:
Seventh step?
BAM!
Face down on the stairs, sliding back down to the main floor…
Fifth step: What the hell…?
Fourth step: Is this really happening? This is just a bad dream, right?
Third step: Pull your skirt down; it’s riding up! Let go of the frickin’ bookbag and PULL DOWN YOUR SKIRT!
Second step: Oh my God, they’re all watching me! Javier is watching me!!!
First step: I have to stand up now, but I want to die. How long will it take for me to block this whole incident out and repress it to the back of mind? Bump it – just kill me now and salt the earth where I’m buried, so nothing ever grows there again.
I stood up. And I prepared for utter devastation and ridicule. But no one laughed. Maybe they were temporarily stunned that something so outrageous had actually happened right there in front of them. I’m sure the jokes came later, after I was safely out of sight and holed up in a dark corner somewhere, nursing my mental wounds.
But I did hear one thing over the sound of my pride cracking into pieces in my ears. It was Javier’s voice, calling out over and over, “Are you okay? Are you okay?”
And that might have been the one time I didn’t say, “Shut up, Javier.”
Instead, I nodded, picked up my bag and the pieces of my pride, and fled up the stairs to Homeroom.
All in all, it was a bad day. But Javier didn’t laugh, so I guess it could have been worse.
* Keepin’ it clean, folks. Keepin’ it clean.
Your lowest point of humiliation will occur between the ages of six and eighteen.
I’m throwing those numbers out there because the concept of shame is foreign to a preschooler, and by the time you’re eighteen, it’s taken a backseat to the mantra “ish happens.”* But at some point during those thirteen years of life in the middle, you’re gonna take a blow that’ll embarrass the hell out of you and make you wish you were no longer a member of the living.
And if you think I’m wrong, ask yourself: how many two-year-olds have you seen running around, whining and crying over the fact that their Huggies were caught on camera after their dress accidentally slid up during the family Christmas photo? And how many honestly care if you put it on YouTube?
I’ll be bold and guess none, because like I said, two-year-olds have no shame. My own niece was the proud neighborhood exhibitionist—throwing up her shirt and flashing her stuff at every car that passed by the house. And since she was only three at the time, I’m really hoping it’s not an indication of her future marketable skills (note to brother-in-law: hide the pole).
Now, fast-forward ten years: the Huggies have turned into big girl panties, the dress is a skirt that got tucked into said panties after a trip to the bathroom, and her left butt cheek is now forever memorialized in her school dance photo album. Yep, that level of “my life is over” mortification has just jumped up a few notches on the humiliation scale. Bump that—it’s skyrocketed, crashed through the ceiling, is circling the cosmos somewhere, and that poor girl will still cringe at the memory when she’s forty and sending her own daughter off to the junior prom.
And now throw on another seven years, add a couple of squares of toilet paper into the mix for funsies, stick a beer in one hand, and slap a crowded frat party in the background. Okay, she’ll be a little embarrassed in the morning after the hangover wears off. And yeah, her friends will ride her about it until the next party, when some other lightweight takes the crown for The Most F’d Up After One Drink award. But you know what? She’ll get over it, ‘cause ish happens, and life moves on after the age of eighteen.
But in those thirteen years in between, even the little things hit you with such intensity. We love hard. Friendships are meant to last forever. The days seem like years, and we always remember them.
So now I’ll tell you about my first big humiliation. I still think about it to this day whenever it rains, I’m wearing a skirt, or I see a cute guy. Take your pick—it doesn’t take much for me flash back to a time when it all went ugly.
My first crush. His name was, oh, let’s say his name was…Javier. Yeah, that’s a good name. Strong, sexy, the kind of name you can just wrap your mouth around and imagine all sorts of naughty things. And he was all of that. His voice set my world on fire every time I heard it, and I don’t know what he put in his Wheaties, but milk really did that body good. Tall, light mustache, beard scruff—and the boy was only in the seventh grade. Ooh, I loved me some Javier.
He, of course, didn’t know it. Oh, huh-uh. My little eighth grade heart would have failed on the spot if he ever found out how much I liked him. To say I was shy would be like saying the sun is warm. Confidence was never a friend of mine, and I was clueless when it came to dealing with the opposite sex. My idea of relating to a boy was either on one of two levels: the asexual friend level, which usually involved me as the go-between for the guy and one of my cute girl friends he wanted to hook up with; or the typical “if I’m really mean to you, treat you like dirt, and possibly even permanently maim you at some point…that means I love you” level. Javier, unfortunately, fell into the second category.
He was in my Spanish class, and I never said more than two words to him. Those two words being: “Shut up.” Okay, make it three words: “Shut up, Javier.”
Whenever he acted up in class (which was often, because that boy didn’t know how to stay out of trouble…which just made me love him more): “Shut up, Javier.”
Whenever he teased one of my friends: “Shut up, Javier.”
Whenever he saw me in the hallway and tried to tease me: “Javier…shut up.”
But, man, I wanted him to like me so bad. Why couldn’t he see how much I yearned for him? I watched every move he made. I knew his class schedule by heart. I knew which girls he talked to, when, and for how long. And believe me, I made a point to find out if any of those girls were interested in him.
No, I wasn’t a stalker. I was just young. And in love.
So the day my mother got me a sweet new outfit (one that didn’t consist of bellbottoms, generic branding, or my sisters’ hand-me-downs), and it made me look like I had stepped right out of the pages of Seventeen, I knew Javier was about to be mine. He was going to take one look at me and recognize what was what. It was the cutest little two-piece ensemble—a fitted red top with a high neck and long, loose sleeves that cinched at the wrist, and a long skirt that hugged my tiny waist and flared at the bottom. Paisley print. And the clincher? She got me a pair of red suede boots, to match.
I. Was. Fierce.
I was so ready to wear that outfit to school, I didn’t even care that it rained the next day. What was a little bad weather in the face of preteen passion? And when I came stepping up into the school with my red suede boots and my red paisley skirt with the matching top, you couldn’t tell me nothing. I felt like the world was mine, and it was time to put that baby in my back pocket where it belonged.
It was just my luck that Javier was one of the first people I saw when I walked in the school. He and a bunch of other guys were lining the wall of the staircase that led up to the second floor where my locker was. And they were all looking at me as I came through the door. Seeing him standing there, the second I entered the school with my new outfit on, just reaffirmed that he was my destiny. I took a deep breath and got ready to strut my stuff.
Past every single one of those boys…
Up the stairs…
Problem. How does a self-conscious, physically awkward girl in brand new shoes that are still wet from the rain walk past a herd of boys, all of whom are staring her down like a lab rat and examining her every movement as she goes up the stairs?
Very, very carefully.
The first step: Just stare straight ahead, nose up in the air, and pretend they’re not there. Don’t let them shake your confidence.
The second step: Oh my God, they’re all watching me. Swing your hip. Swing your hip!
Third step: Okay, you’re passing Javier. Really work it, now. Try to put a twist in it.
Fourth step: I wonder what he thinks of my outfit?
Fifth step: I look so good.
Sixth step: Maybe I’ll talk to him in Spanish class today.
Seventh step:
Seventh step?
BAM!
Face down on the stairs, sliding back down to the main floor…
Fifth step: What the hell…?
Fourth step: Is this really happening? This is just a bad dream, right?
Third step: Pull your skirt down; it’s riding up! Let go of the frickin’ bookbag and PULL DOWN YOUR SKIRT!
Second step: Oh my God, they’re all watching me! Javier is watching me!!!
First step: I have to stand up now, but I want to die. How long will it take for me to block this whole incident out and repress it to the back of mind? Bump it – just kill me now and salt the earth where I’m buried, so nothing ever grows there again.
I stood up. And I prepared for utter devastation and ridicule. But no one laughed. Maybe they were temporarily stunned that something so outrageous had actually happened right there in front of them. I’m sure the jokes came later, after I was safely out of sight and holed up in a dark corner somewhere, nursing my mental wounds.
But I did hear one thing over the sound of my pride cracking into pieces in my ears. It was Javier’s voice, calling out over and over, “Are you okay? Are you okay?”
And that might have been the one time I didn’t say, “Shut up, Javier.”
Instead, I nodded, picked up my bag and the pieces of my pride, and fled up the stairs to Homeroom.
All in all, it was a bad day. But Javier didn’t laugh, so I guess it could have been worse.
* Keepin’ it clean, folks. Keepin’ it clean.
Your lowest point of humiliation will occur between the ages of six and eighteen.
I’m throwing those numbers out there because the concept of shame is foreign to a preschooler, and by the time you’re eighteen, it’s taken a backseat to the mantra “ish happens.”* But at some point during those thirteen years of life in the middle, you’re gonna take a blow that’ll embarrass the hell out of you and make you wish you were no longer a member of the living.
And if you think I’m wrong, ask yourself: how many two-year-olds have you seen running around, whining and crying over the fact that their Huggies were caught on camera after their dress accidentally slid up during the family Christmas photo? And how many honestly care if you put it on YouTube?
I’ll be bold and guess none, because like I said, two-year-olds have no shame. My own niece was the proud neighborhood exhibitionist—throwing up her shirt and flashing her stuff at every car that passed by the house. And since she was only three at the time, I’m really hoping it’s not an indication of her future marketable skills (note to brother-in-law: hide the pole).
Now, fast-forward ten years: the Huggies have turned into big girl panties, the dress is a skirt that got tucked into said panties after a trip to the bathroom, and her left butt cheek is now forever memorialized in her school dance photo album. Yep, that level of “my life is over” mortification has just jumped up a few notches on the humiliation scale. Bump that—it’s skyrocketed, crashed through the ceiling, is circling the cosmos somewhere, and that poor girl will still cringe at the memory when she’s forty and sending her own daughter off to the junior prom.
And now throw on another seven years, add a couple of squares of toilet paper into the mix for funsies, stick a beer in one hand, and slap a crowded frat party in the background. Okay, she’ll be a little embarrassed in the morning after the hangover wears off. And yeah, her friends will ride her about it until the next party, when some other lightweight takes the crown for The Most F’d Up After One Drink award. But you know what? She’ll get over it, ‘cause ish happens, and life moves on after the age of eighteen.
But in those thirteen years in between, even the little things hit you with such intensity. We love hard. Friendships are meant to last forever. The days seem like years, and we always remember them.
So now I’ll tell you about my first big humiliation. I still think about it to this day whenever it rains, I’m wearing a skirt, or I see a cute guy. Take your pick—it doesn’t take much for me flash back to a time when it all went ugly.
My first crush. His name was, oh, let’s say his name was…Javier. Yeah, that’s a good name. Strong, sexy, the kind of name you can just wrap your mouth around and imagine all sorts of naughty things. And he was all of that. His voice set my world on fire every time I heard it, and I don’t know what he put in his Wheaties, but milk really did that body good. Tall, light mustache, beard scruff—and the boy was only in the seventh grade. Ooh, I loved me some Javier.
He, of course, didn’t know it. Oh, huh-uh. My little eighth grade heart would have failed on the spot if he ever found out how much I liked him. To say I was shy would be like saying the sun is warm. Confidence was never a friend of mine, and I was clueless when it came to dealing with the opposite sex. My idea of relating to a boy was either on one of two levels: the asexual friend level, which usually involved me as the go-between for the guy and one of my cute girl friends he wanted to hook up with; or the typical “if I’m really mean to you, treat you like dirt, and possibly even permanently maim you at some point…that means I love you” level. Javier, unfortunately, fell into the second category.
He was in my Spanish class, and I never said more than two words to him. Those two words being: “Shut up.” Okay, make it three words: “Shut up, Javier.”
Whenever he acted up in class (which was often, because that boy didn’t know how to stay out of trouble…which just made me love him more): “Shut up, Javier.”
Whenever he teased one of my friends: “Shut up, Javier.”
Whenever he saw me in the hallway and tried to tease me: “Javier…shut up.”
But, man, I wanted him to like me so bad. Why couldn’t he see how much I yearned for him? I watched every move he made. I knew his class schedule by heart. I knew which girls he talked to, when, and for how long. And believe me, I made a point to find out if any of those girls were interested in him.
No, I wasn’t a stalker. I was just young. And in love.
So the day my mother got me a sweet new outfit (one that didn’t consist of bellbottoms, generic branding, or my sisters’ hand-me-downs), and it made me look like I had stepped right out of the pages of Seventeen, I knew Javier was about to be mine. He was going to take one look at me and recognize what was what. It was the cutest little two-piece ensemble—a fitted red top with a high neck and long, loose sleeves that cinched at the wrist, and a long skirt that hugged my tiny waist and flared at the bottom. Paisley print. And the clincher? She got me a pair of red suede boots, to match.
I. Was. Fierce.
I was so ready to wear that outfit to school, I didn’t even care that it rained the next day. What was a little bad weather in the face of preteen passion? And when I came stepping up into the school with my red suede boots and my red paisley skirt with the matching top, you couldn’t tell me nothing. I felt like the world was mine, and it was time to put that baby in my back pocket where it belonged.
It was just my luck that Javier was one of the first people I saw when I walked in the school. He and a bunch of other guys were lining the wall of the staircase that led up to the second floor where my locker was. And they were all looking at me as I came through the door. Seeing him standing there, the second I entered the school with my new outfit on, just reaffirmed that he was my destiny. I took a deep breath and got ready to strut my stuff.
Past every single one of those boys…
Up the stairs…
Problem. How does a self-conscious, physically awkward girl in brand new shoes that are still wet from the rain walk past a herd of boys, all of whom are staring her down like a lab rat and examining her every movement as she goes up the stairs?
Very, very carefully.
The first step: Just stare straight ahead, nose up in the air, and pretend they’re not there. Don’t let them shake your confidence.
The second step: Oh my God, they’re all watching me. Swing your hip. Swing your hip!
Third step: Okay, you’re passing Javier. Really work it, now. Try to put a twist in it.
Fourth step: I wonder what he thinks of my outfit?
Fifth step: I look so good.
Sixth step: Maybe I’ll talk to him in Spanish class today.
Seventh step:
Seventh step?
BAM!
Face down on the stairs, sliding back down to the main floor…
Fifth step: What the hell…?
Fourth step: Is this really happening? This is just a bad dream, right?
Third step: Pull your skirt down; it’s riding up! Let go of the frickin’ bookbag and PULL DOWN YOUR SKIRT!
Second step: Oh my God, they’re all watching me! Javier is watching me!!!
First step: I have to stand up now, but I want to die. How long will it take for me to block this whole incident out and repress it to the back of mind? Bump it – just kill me now and salt the earth where I’m buried, so nothing ever grows there again.
I stood up. And I prepared for utter devastation and ridicule. But no one laughed. Maybe they were temporarily stunned that something so outrageous had actually happened right there in front of them. I’m sure the jokes came later, after I was safely out of sight and holed up in a dark corner somewhere, nursing my mental wounds.
But I did hear one thing over the sound of my pride cracking into pieces in my ears. It was Javier’s voice, calling out over and over, “Are you okay? Are you okay?”
And that might have been the one time I didn’t say, “Shut up, Javier.”
Instead, I nodded, picked up my bag and the pieces of my pride, and fled up the stairs to Homeroom.
All in all, it was a bad day. But Javier didn’t laugh, so I guess it could have been worse.
* Keepin’ it clean, folks. Keepin’ it clean.
