Adina’s Cute & Perky Blog!

I saw one recently that did…

Third grade was such a miserable year for me. We had moved for the sixth time in my short school career, but this was the first time we had switched schools in the middle of the year.

I remember the lump that formed in my throat when I went to check out of one school and get my belongings; and the overwhelming feeling of panic at the sight of the new school. I was petrified in my fear.

My first day at the new school was so miserable that I grabbed my lunch kit to go home at recess thinking the day was over. With dread and embarrassment I took it back to the classroom, a single tear sliding down my cheek as I put it in the slot.

How could the day not be over? How could there be two more hours in this wretched ,horrible day?

As with any tragic girlhood memory, there was a mean girl. A girl so insecure with herself that bringing others down was the only way she can make herself feel good.

She was hateful, and I was scared of her.

She didn’t know that we had been evicted from our house. She didn’t know that memories of policeman telling us we had to go haunted my thoughts and at that the mere sight of one, I became physically ill.

She didn’t know that I would go home unsure of whether someone would be there and if there would be food to eat.

And certainly she didn’t know that I had seen more porn at that age than many adults ever will. I am sure she was blissfully unaware of what porn even was at only eight years old.

She didn’t know that school was my refuge, and that she made the one bearable place in my life unbearable.

But there was this one bright spot.

I had been allowed to order one thing from an Avon catalog. A little perfume bottle. It was a cat wearing a flowing ball gown.

A tacky thing of beauty I named Miss Kitty.

I had no other beautiful things. She was my only treasure. I left the house with nothing else, and I loved her the way only a child loves her favorite toy.

And I just knew she held the key to my acceptance at the new school, so it was with hope that I brought her to Show-and-Tell.

Just as I suspected, all the girls loved her. She got passed up and down the rows. Even the mean girl thought she was cute.

So I took her to the playground with me for recess where all the girls wanted to hold her, and where the mean girl promptly dropped her.

She shattered into a million pieces, and I erupted into tears.

I was not to be consoled, nor was I ever allowed to order from that catalog again.

The top had not broken, as only the bottom was glass. For weeks I tried to find something to make due. I put that top half on every bottle I could find, but none looked like a dress.

I cried every time I looked at her and finally had to let her go. What good was a half? It was no longer a thing of beauty. It was just a thing.

The mean girl never apologized. She was just what she was. Mean.

She was one of those who had everything, having no concept of what that little bottle meant to me.

We moved from that school a few months later.

I grew older, and never thought about that school again.

When you get moved around a lot you throw up walls of protection fortified with indifference. You learn ways of protecting yourself from the mean girls of this world, or from anybody for that matter.

But a few weeks ago I found myself in one of those junky, hole-in-the-wall antique places. You know, the sign says “antiques” but the merchandise screams “junk”!

I just love those stores!!!!

As I rummaged along the aisles, I came to a shelf filled with old, junky perfume bottles. We’re talking junk, y’all. Not fancy bottles, just empty ones.

But peering at me from behind those bottles was a sight that immediately brought tears to my eyes.

There sat Miss Kitty in the midst of all that trash, as if she was waiting for me to find her.

And the wounded little girl who lies dormant in my soul reached out her hand to take that precious bottle from the shelf.

And that little bottle now sits next to my Sponge Bob alarm clock! A place of honor, as the clock was a gift from my son.

She doesn’t mean the same thing she once did, as I am grown and I know love. I give it, and I receive it from the three people dearest to my heart. Two boys and a man I love with all my heart multiplied by three.

And what once was a symbol of the only lovely thing I had is now a reminder of where I came from, and not where I remain.

Been there. Done that. Got the perfume bottle!