Mean Girls

I just watched the movie Mean Girls, which was inspired by the book Queen Bees and Wanna-be's. I haven't read the book yet, because I'm a mom, and taking a shower requires an act of Congress, and being able to read a book that doesn't have pictures or the word 'Underpants' in the title requires an act of God.

Anyway, the book basically outlines the social structure of 'Girl-World' and the way teen girls relate to one another, boys, and their parents, and how we, as parents, can make them be healthy, happy, and successful with their self-image and sense of self-worth. Or, it could be teaching them how to commune with yaks to maintain the alignment of their chakra. Like I said, I haven't read the book. Pay attention, already!

The author of the book interviewed several teen girls, for research on her book, and I'm assuming there were a handful of Mean Girl tales, either how the girls were treated BY them, or how they treated others AS them. (As far as the yaks go, I have no idea, because I haven't read ... oh, never mind.) I remember the beginning of high school, I was picked on by our school's Mean Girls, and I also remember my mom telling me not to worry about it, because 'They're just jealous.' Which made a whole lot of sense. I mean, I had dark blue plastic framed glasses from Sears, was frequently mistaken for a boy, and had two front teeth that could be seen from space. Of COURSE they were jealous, wouldn't YOU be? Then I discovered contacts, the braces came off, and apparently I started to look like a girl (instead of, say, a wildebeest), and I was not-so-much picked on anymore. I think I was even courted by one of the more-aggressively-mean cliques, but I wasn't so keen on hanging around with people who had previously thought it tremendously funny to bark like a seal whenever I walked into a room. Instead, I stole their boyfriends and put vaseline on the windshield wipers of their cars, sometimes at the same time! That, or I thought about doing it a great deal. It was so very long ago, who can really remember?

In any case, I have never received any invitations to my high school reunions. I'm sure they're all just jealous.