Bad Behavior

It has come to my attention that I have a magical rump. Yes, rump. I could have been cute and coy and Canadian and said "bum", but I'm more of a solid midwestern gal who has grown up with the ability to open doors stuck in the doorframe with a single bump with my rear, so "bum" just seems too adorable to use in this case.

Why magical you ask? Because people seem to think I will magically respond well if they make contact with it, as if I were a genie in a strange sort of fleshy, awesome bottle. Over the past few years, I have endured a lot of pinching, slapping, copping-a feel, standing too close in a crowded room, and general buffoonery involving the my rear.

It started around 6th grade. I was in a program for the gifted, and once a week we'd all get bussed to a local elementary school to learn about accelerated subjects and further alienate ourselves from our peers. While hanging out with Heather and Erica near the tetherball pole one day, two boys came up and said, "We're taking a poll about who has the biggest and best butt in the 6th grade." We tried to hide our rears, but we were out in the open, and there were two of them, which allowed them to employ some strategies that we couldn't counteract. They'd fake to the right and then the left and then split up, leaving us vulnerable with no safe direction to turn to. We weren't coordinated enough to make a triangle of security, and we were slow to react, being both halfway confused at the stupidity of their statement and half embarrassed because of it. After a few seconds of dodging and weaving, Brian and Ken pointed at me and said "You tied with Esther for biggest and best butt!" Esther, another student in the 6th grade, was an early developer who wore lots of eyeliner and tight jeans and easily outweighed me by about 20 lbs. Needless to say, being compared to this girl-woman left me really confused, as I certainly wasn't an early bloomer by any stretch of the imagination (Are you there god? I'm still waiting for my boobs, ahem). I guess I didn't notice that the developement had been happening someplace I rarely paid attention to, and now it was starting to draw the attention of others. This was long before J-Lo and Sir Mix-a-Lot had popularized the large posterier. It was still an era of "you can never be too thin or too rich" and I was neither, and my large posterier was just one more tick on the list of awkward shit I'd have to deal with while growing up.

My cheeks got their first pinch at a frat party that I went to in sixth grade,with my sister (another story for another time, so don't judge her too harshly for this), where a really drunk guy mistook me, braces and all, for a co-ed. Or he could have just been a pedophile. He said "How'm bout you make an ass out of yourself and get on the dancefloor wif' me?" I told the gentleman that I was 12. My sister swooped in and said "She's 12." He said "That doesn't mean she can't dance wi' me." It amused me to no end at the time, but now I can't help but hope he got alcohol poisoning and died that night.

The torture was just beginning, as I soon signed up for Industrial Arts in the 8th grade. It was just my luck that I got to share the class with nearly all of the school's juvenile delinquents, one of whom was rumored to already have his own custom made pool cue. This was before the dawn of Prozac and Adderall being commonly prescribed for adolescents. Add pubescent hormones to the mix, and you have a dangerous cocktail of shyness, bravado, and squirreliness . It was also unfortunate that this was the year that stirrup pants were in. Being acutely aware of my burgeoning rump, I countered the fashion movement by wearing a lot of long, booty-hiding sweaters. To no avail. I got pinched and groped on the every-other-day schedule. The teacher - Mr. Werline, a man who didn't believe females had a place learning how to employ motor skills or the kind of critical thinking one would use to solder or drill holes in metal, wasn't exactly the understanding kind of person that I wanted to confide in. I spent a lot of time calling home sick on odd days during that semester.

Flash forward to college: I am hugging my boyfriend outside of a restaurant, and a group of eight football playing-looking guys walk by. "I wouldn't let her go," says one fat-neck, "She's got a nice ass!". They all laugh while they walk away, and my 5'9" 145 lb boyfriend is powerless to really do or say anything about it. I wasn't really expecting him to, as these guys were so built and their chests were so developed that they didn't look like they could clap. Of course, this follows that fact that the same boyfriend took a covert picture of me bending over in my bathing suit at the beach the previous spring, which remained unbeknownst to me until he cheekily showed me a few weeks later. I was livid, but has wasn't giving up the picture, saying "It's awesome" and giggling like a little kid who got into the wine cabinet. He is married now. Does he still have that picture? Has his wife found it and did they have a fight about it? "Who is this?", she'd scream. "Just a friend from college", he'd reply, but when she asks "Fine, then you won't have a problem throwing out this picture, will you?", his downtrodden face will betray his fondness and nostalgia for the rump in the picture, and she will know that he is lying. They either divorce because of this, or she shoves the anger deep down inside of herself while thinking, "It's a huge, fat ass, anyway."

Seriously, I don't understand. It's an okay seat, but I don't think it warrants this kind of attention. It's not small, but not crazy huge. Plus, it's not like it should invite the same kind of attention that a large chest would get you- it's covered all of the time. I don't wear low cut jeans. I don't try to draw attention to it (except this blog). It's just there.

None of this really helped once I got to grad school either. Along with all of the "pretend sports" that you see investment bankers and rich-pricks playing on a regular basis (swinging the imaginary golf club or throwing the imaginary football to signify that they are busy and important and sporty), touching my caboose became a favorite excercise for some. From some guys - this was no surprise - they were scuzzy and drunk. My particular non-favorite was at the winter-formal dance, where "Jarrett" walked by with his date, "Rachael" a fellow classmate, and he managed to open palm slap me on one cheek in the middle of the dance floor without her noticing. I could have caused a scene, but when somebody has a dead soul - nothing will make them feel bad about 14 yr-old behavior. I just made sure to stay away from him after that episode. I also didn't feel to bad for Rachael - who would make out with anything anywhere, including the dishwasher at the local eatery whom she met while coming down from a 6 hour bender. If she ever found out about Jarrett's actions - I'm sure she'd move on in short order, or to a short-order cook.

Some advances were a total surprise - as they came from guys who otherwise seemed like nice, mannered men. I had, what I considered to be up until that time, a friend, who goosed me so hard that it felt like he wanted to make his fingernails touch while pinching my cheek. Naturally I screamed in some serious pain and gave him the pummeling of his life. Later on, he apologized and seemed to feel genuinely bad about it. He never tried it again - so we called it a truce. Then there are the guys seem nice but turn into creepy jerks. "Fahri" kept sneaking up on me and goosing me whenever I went out (it was a small town - it was hard to avoid the school crowd), and every time I yelled at him or hit him- "Fahri" would swear up and down that he didn't do it, it was somebody else. He was dating a fellow classmate as well. All of these episodes make me wonder how well we really know anyone at all. My lady lumps are apparently a divining rod for jerks.

I figured once I got out of school and away from the MBA-holes, that my derriere would get a long and well deserved reprieve from constant assualt....until last New Year's Eve, where a married friend hit my ass so hard in the middle of a party that I literally became airborn.

This time I fought back. I turned around and started pushing him, saying "What the hell was that? What was that? What are you doing?" In the end, he felt pretty bad, he was pretty drunk, and he said that I was free and clear to smack him in the face as hard as I wanted to, which I did. It made me feel a bit better, and was probably a better end to the night than having a nasty fight or leaving the party in tears. This time, at least I got to smack back.

Does anyone else have this issue? I can't be the only one, but I don't hear a lot about this from the friends that I've talked to. My rear needs some R&R. Any suggestions? It's enough to make me want to go to extreme protective measures.