There are a lot of terrible things to have come out of the 1980s: rattails, the inordinate popularity of the name “Jessica,” and the foundations of neoconservatism, to name a select few. But there is one thing that rises higher in terribledom than all other atrocities/poor choices of that decade, and that thing is a person. More specifically, a girl (assuming, of course, that the corporeal vortex of all evil can even be expected to have 2 X-chromosomes). She is my archrival, the ultimate villain; as such, let her from this point on be known as The Adenoid.
As anyone who was ever a high school-attending girl knows, the most appropriate yearbook quote for your senior picture is not “Turns out it’s not where but who you’re with that really matters” or “This has all been wonderful, but now I’m on my way” but it is, in fact, “Keep your friends close, but your enemies closer.” For this reason, The Adenoid and I ran in the same circle. The same very small circle. In fact, we were purportedly in some randomly constructed foursome of “best friends.” We were: Skippy, the only one of the four that I actually still call my friend and a good one that, though in high school we did the awkward dance of jealousy and need for approval around each other; Mel, who I haven’t seen or spoken to in about 8 years, who was there as our indie rock contigent and therefore was largely oblivious to our stupid girly shit, and who was also way better friends with other people but was somehow absorbed into our simulacrum of a “group”; Stella, who is me, who was kind of insecure in being a relatively pretty and successful high school girl and wanted nothing more than an actual closeknit group of friends but who did annoying things like always have a boyfriend and wear fairy wings to school (and who had a superhero identity to conceal!); and then The Adenoid, who was, as we’ve already established, the embodiment of all the world’s richest and most devastating horrors.
Physically repulsive as well as possessing of an unbearable personality, The Adenoid really was a double, terrible, AWFUL threat. Seriously, not only was this girl severely beaten with the ugly stick, but she also ate the fruit from the ugly tree, thus infecting her very soul with permanent, original ugliness. Frizzy hair and mottled skin, mouth perpetually turned into a jowly frown and always slightly ajar (due to the condition from which her name derives), she was a stereotype wrapped in a cliche, dipped into a hot vat of bitterness and garnished with acne. And she whined and squawked and ricocheted back and forth from plotting to get my other friend to make out with my then-boyfriend at some show that my parents wouldn’t let me go to (ever lived in suburbia? since there’s nothing to do, we resort to elaborate mindgames) all the way to calling me at 11:30 at night, crying that no one would ever love her and that I was the only one she could really confide in.
I’ve already given this nefarious beast more attention that she deserves, but I do have to grudgingly admit that she’s been the subject of many a story since I last saw her. I’ve since heard that she a) lives in Brooklyn sort of near me b) is some kind of social worker and c) thought she was pregnant her freshman year of college (immaculate conception by Satan himself is what I’m choosing to believe happened) and proceeded to do a lot of coke in order to solve that problem. And indeed most of my friends and acquaintances know who she is, only because once anything bad happens in the world her face immediately flashes upon my inward eye. Just last week, my friend was all, “Oh my god, Stella, I just found out my mom has cancer and she has three weeks to live,” and I was all, “Oh my god, that sucks, but did I ever tell you about the time that I got into a fistfight with The Adenoid?”
And it was, in fact, through The Adenoid that I found my superhero partner in crime, and who you will hear from later (I’ll let him introduce his own self). We were at one of the many watering holes for out of work superheroes when I happened to glimpse a patron of the bar that looked suspiciously like The Adenoid. Seeing as how she haunts my nightmares, it’s not entirely surprising that I see her face everywhere I go, but this resemblance was more uncanny than usual. So I relayed this news to my friend, who responded that he, too, had met someone named The Adenoid. I have to say I immediately knew, even at that moment, that they were one and the same, that this was a sign for us to finally unite to save the world, or at least engage in some navel-gazing joint blogging. I put it out of my mind as best I could until I got this text message on Friday afternoon:
“Oh my god, its the same Adenoid! I have hung out with The Adenoid! I have played board games with The Adenoid!”
And that’s why I’m here now. Fuck you, Adenoid, and thank you, once again, for bringing me together with a fellow superhero in order to take delight in your miserable existence.
And if I ever write about her again, someone please punch me in the neck.
-Stella Kevlar
