In my lifetime, I've had some pretty comical run-ins with some pretty interesting characters. Some, because of my blind optimism and others because of people's vast misunderstanding as to what I am.
One of my favorites takes place at a football game my sophomore year in early September. I wasn't too comfortable talking about when I was a female so I always dodged questions about it. But as fate would have it, a girl cornered me and ask "Are you Kaeleigh Corr?". (For those who didn't know me, Kaeleigh was my birth name.) Without flinching, I spun around and said "no, that's my dead cousin who died two years ago but thanks for bringing it up. I'm Peter by the way."
The girl look horrified. She said sorry and ran off. We rarely interact nowadays. I still feel a little bad, mainly because she still thinks I'm dead and at the same time I'm someone else. Sorry Courtney.
Another story of my painfully uncomfortable youth takes place on the play ground of my kindergarten school. I was captain of the boys team in the boys vs girls games. I picked the name Tony and had all the boys call me Tony and call me male pronouns. They never really saw it as an issue but the teachers and administrators definitely did. Ultimately boys vs girls was shut down and they started calling by me by my birth name again. Tony Hawk, I want you to know I went by Tony for 6 damn years of my life because I wanted to be you.
My sisters favorite story is all centered around one of those old time photo booths. My mother, desperate for her two kids to be girly, paid for the pictures to be taken. I as usual, was not going down with out a fight. After about 20 minutes of me being very sure that I would not wear a dress, my five year old self looks my mother dead in the eye and says "I'll only wear a dress if I can hold a gun." She gives in and I wore a frilly green dress and he'd a fake gun. I didn't smile at all in the picture but if I do say so myself I looked pretty bad ass.
Finally in this parade of embarrassing stories is a short sum up of how much of a joke I was as a kid. I always "accidentally" picked up the male pieces in LIFE and always had a wife. I "accidentally forgot" to correct the waitress who called me buddy instead of sweetie. Or when I sent my mom into a tizzy because I went into a male dressing room instead of a female. Or when I cried at my first communion because they made me wear a dress. But hey, you live and you learn.
