Twas Brillig

Welcome to Soap Opera Sunday, Gentle Readers. This week, the lovely, talented, and GORGEOUS crew who run the Anonymous Soapiness site are our Guest Hosts, so if you’re playing along, or looking for more SOSes, head on over there.

(Yes, Kate and I run the Anonymous Soapiness site…)

When I was 15, my parents moved me into a new house. I SO didn’t want to live there, in that obnoxiously snooty neighborhood on Snob Hill. As far as I could tell, everyone up here was a cheerleader or a drug addict or both, and I didn’t like them, and I didn’t want to like them. I avoided them all for a whole year.

One day, there was a church activity for the youth–specifically the Young Women (the girls age 12-18). Now, every ward in the Church has youth activities. Where I came from, we were happy with getting together in the field near the church and playing kick-the-can or whatever. But on Snob Hill, things were different, even church activities— the activity here was that everyone was bringing their boats to Lake Powell for a huge 5-day camp out.

Um, yeah. First, I didn’t like these people and I didn’t want to spend more than two seconds with them. Secondly, I didn’t think I could stomach everyone standing around in their slutty swimsuits and superiority complexes while we pretended to be having a Church activity.

But, dearest Mommy and Daddy were concerned about my total disdain for our new neighbors and thought it would be good for me to go and have some bonding time with them. I remember thinking that I’d rather yank off my toenails with tweezers, but somehow I suddenly found myself in someone’s BMW riding the four hour drive to Lake Powell.

Slowly but surely, I did begin to make friends with some of the girls. One girl adored me right off the bat, because my older brother Chris had been her drug counselor a few years before and had apparently made a huge difference in helping her break her addiction. Another girl liked me because she had read one of my mom’s books. And, finally, a girl who we will call Minki liked me because she, too, was a bit of a fish out of water just like me. Don’t get me wrong— her daddy had his boat there, her swimsuit was probably the sluttiest of them all, and she knew everyone and had been around forever. But strangely enough, we clicked and soon we became practically inseparable.

And that, dear ones, will suffice for this week. Stay tuned for next week, when Minki and I acquire the third member of our clan and officially becoming the Conceitrio.