All It Takes

All it takes is one asshole to ruin your day. All it takes is one inconsiderate, rude, thoughtless, mean, careless, judgmental, or just downright terrible person to make you want to hate everyone in the world forever.

All it takes is one person to tick you off or rub you the wrong way or insult you or make you feel aggressive or defenseless to get you stuck in a funk for the remainder of the day. All it takes is one comment, one little remark, to make you hate everything, hide yourself from the rest of the world.

Yesterday, all it took was a couple little words.

"I'm Abby."

Sounds harmless, right? Well, in all honesty, it probably is. There's nothing wrong with Abby, per se, but something about her rubs me the wrong, wrong, wrong way. I just irrationally hate her, and that alone makes me hate her. It makes me hate her because I hate myself for hating someone without good reason.

Yet I do, and it's driving me nuts! I was grinding my teeth all yesterday, during group and then period five, which was US II with my teacher Mr. K. One of my best friends--you know, more or less--Nic (short for Nicole, but trust me, she's more of a Nic. That, and the fact that she's bisexual so she feels Nicole is too feminine. I agree, though I suppose my opinion doesn't really matter in the scheme of things) was taking a break from her Independent Study to hang out with us in Mr. K's room, 'cause he's all cool like that.

Anyways, Abby walks in, and I swear to God, my jaw clenched so tightly I though it might fall off. Legit. "Hello, there," Mr. K said in his new kid voice, "Are you...Abby?"

"Yep." A high-pitched, squeaky, girly squeal was oozing from that one word. It made my skin crawl. It made my ears let out steam. It made my teeth gnaw so tightly together they hurt. The tone made my upper teeth sink down savagely into my bottom lip until it drew blood. It. Drove. Me. Insane.

I wanted to scream. I wanted to yell. I wanted to slap her--which, I know, is truly irrational, but hey, I never claimed to be a totally logical, reasonable person. I try, but even the best intentions get run over by wild, barbaric emotions. (Those damn feelings! Have they no sympathy for the emotional in this world? Apparently not.)

And then Nic went, "Abby, hey! Good to see you here!"

And just like that I became Crazy Katie. I shut my eyes and counted to one thousand. I ground my teeth. I grunted and thought violent thoughts about 'Abby.' I'm sorry, but at that moment I sincerely wanted to strangle her. Luckily, Mr. K putting us to the topic of the Trail of Tears and Andrew Jackson's Indian Removal Act was enough of a distraction to keep me from tearing her throat out.

"Nice to meet you, Mr. Khorshianzadeh," she said, fumbling over his last name. (Can't say as I can blame her for that one, I'm not even sure I spelled it right!)

Nic leaned closer to me and said with a goofy grin, "Abby is one of my favorite people right now! She's so funny and cool!"

"Yeah," I said, grunting in response. "Yeah, she's pretty darn awesome all right."

More playful grins.

I cannot tell you just how annoyed and utterly infuriated I was. Okay, I was being really illogical, but I felt threatened. I felt like I was fucking losing one of my best friends. Crazy, I know. But I didn't call myself "Crazy Katie" for nothing.


Even Mr. K liked her, though I'm guessing it was mostly because she was a sci-fi nerd and Mr. K is probably one of the biggest I've ever met in my lifetime, and that's saying a lot.

"Anybody know anything about the Trail of Tears and the Indian Removal Act?" Mr. K inquired, giving us one of his "FOCUS!" glares that never really seem to work. At all.

I knew a lot, like too much to put down on paper, but I was too busy fuming about Abby to notice, to care, to want to fucking contribute. So I didn't. I sat there, still as a stone, not saying anything. At that moment in time I didn't feel like there was really anything I could say that could magically make Abby disappear and at the moment that was all I was really concerned about.

Silly and pathetic considering one can't wave a magic wand and make someone go POOF! But hey, one can dream, right?

Sigh. I think I'm going to have to face the truth: Abby isn't going anywhere, anytime soon. So now I just have to kill her with kindness. So I will. I'll be nice and understanding and accepting and enthusiastic, and she'll never suspect a thing, right?

Right.