Birthday Map

It's been a while since I have done a birthday shout-out people! And today is the day for a GOOD ONE. Happy birthday to my awesome friend Map!

Mappella, where to begin to talk about her? It's hard because I can't really remember a time when I didn't know her. Along with Alli, she is my oldest friend. The thing about Map is, she is FUN. Eff You Enn, fun. Not only that, when we were growing up, she had BAWLS. Gigantic cajones, people. We went to a large public school in a factory town, and let me tell you some of those teachers we had were mean, nasty wardens. Not a lot of nurturing. Lots of unnecessary corporal punishment going on. I remember my 9th grade math teacher actually throwing a kid out of his chair onto the floor. Rough stuff, right? Teachers were there to KEEP US IN OUR PLACE. And Map, well, she would not be put in her place. She defined her own place, on her terms. And that rocked all of us.

The thing about Map was that she was so friggin' SMART about her rebellions. She would mess with people in good humor, with a large dose of irony. Like, the other kids would do stupid things like smoke in the bathroom (snore) or sass back to teachers (boring) to get their point across. Map was much more creative. Like, we had a dress code in high school-- no shorts was a big one, for some reason. So, Map wouldn't wear shorts, but she WOULD come to school in her pajamas. Just march into first hour wearing her pajamas, with no hint of defiance on her pretty face. Who me? she would seem to say. Oh, yeah, I guess I AM wearing pajamas. Is there a problem?

In 11th grade, we had this US History class that was a total waste of time. It was basically a free hour, where we had no real assignments, no reading to do, and no lectures. Half the time I don't remember our teacher even being in the room. Yet, there was a strict policy that we could NOT be late. If we had something like 25 tardies, we automatically failed the class. You must be on time for this hour of nothingness! Butts in seats for...no reason! So, Map, Alli, and I started sporadically showing up late. Although Alli and I did this every once in a while, Map took being late to a high art form. In my high school journal, I have documented that she went to the absolute brink of failing-via-tardiness each and every marking period. The days that she wasn't late was only because she put her foot over the threshold of the classroom door AS THE BELL WAS RINGING. She never made a statement about this. She never sassed our teacher. She was perfectly pleasant about it every day. Just late. She also gave us (Alli and me) the brilliant idea of bringing in our breakfasts from McDonalds and just spreading them right out across our desks. Because hey, we weren't doing anything anyway, so we might as well have a hash brown or a shamrock shake or something. If she wasn't already a straight A student she should have been just for ideas like that.

Then there was the last week of school before we graduated. I'll never forget it. We were standing in the hallway and the principal of our school was standing there as well. Map went into a classroom and grabbed a pair of scissors. "Hey Mr. K" she said to the principal, just bright and sunshiney and balls out. "You know there's a tradition where graduating seniors get to keep a part of our principal's tie, right?" and she reached out and SNIPPED OFF A PIECE OF HIS SILK TIE. We all stopped and stared. Oh no she didn. She did NOT just cut off a piece of his tie. He looked surprised, but looked at her angelic-face-of-innocence and just laughed hesitantly. "Heh heh. No, I hadn't heard of that before. But there you go!" She then proceeded to pass the scissors around and we all snipped the shit out of that tie. He walked around the rest of the day with a little stub of a windsor knot, and I still have that friggin' piece of tie to THIS DAY.

So that's what I learned from Map. She was smart, she was fun, and she always, always had a sense of her own worth. She wouldn't be treated like crap and she never let the bastards bring her down. And she can still make me laugh until I cry.

Happy Birthday Map! You rock my socks.

Kiss the rings, I'm out.
Librarian Girl