Despite actually being a forty-five year old woman, I bolted shut my apartment door from the inside like a belligerent misunderstood emo teenager in a bedroom inside her parent’s house and whined out loud. I wanted nothing more than to peel off my jacket, leave it tossed vicariously on the floor, shoes kicked off where they may lay and television nonsense flooding my ears (I don’t have an I-pod) until someone called me and my adolescent palate to a comforting suppertime meal of macaroni and cheese! (Personally I love/blame “The Living End” for singing “Prisoner of Society” on the radio in my car, thus encouraging me to sing, cheer and feel like total brat.)
Oh, the teen angst was nearly unbearable! Oh, I feared my immortal soul was already in jeopardy! Oh, where the hell were all of my old defiant punk rock CDs?!
But surveying my new/old bat-cave, I crawled back into my forty-five year old skin, picked up my sweatshirt and hung it delicately in the closet like an Adult.
Would this be my future? Would there be no more random kicking off of clothing? No more piles of shoes at the doorway? Was I meant to spend the rest of my life carrying boots to a closet in preferential treatment to the possibility of repercussions by the temperamental rantings of an overly aggressive “parental” landlord? (*shudder*)
Clearly there was only one solution available to me, as I still needed to tackle the kitchen floor…
I needed black eyeliner!
>>><<<
Despite warnings from my last crew’s on-set dresser (let’s call her “Shannon”) I tackled my ceramic kitchen tile with eyes as dark as Illusionist Chriss Angel and one handy green Swiffer wet mop.
Yet as predicted by Shannon, I found myself befuddled by a streaky mess… (The floor, not my eyeliner.)
No worries though!
I also had (in my cache of only-possibly-toxic chemicals under the kitchen sink) possession of some Oxy-foamy thingy! And squirting the eco-goo onto the tile as it dripped lovingly down my arm, I was certain that the planet-friendly enzymes would easily dissolve the soapy scum, and with a bit of elbow grease, I could help save the Earth! (Once a month or so…)
I would go completely green!
I would purchase only environmentally safe products!
I would…, um…
I would…, er…
I would stare at the impenetrable cake forming on the tile for the next twenty years...???
Retrieving one more long-lost bottle of cleaner, I hosed down the area like a riot squad with rubber bullets tackling an unruly mob. My adolescent phase long passed by now, I assaulted the out-of-control scene with as much fire power as was in my arsenal; and smiling with militant satisfaction as the debris lifted, disappeared and washed away I raised a triumphant fist.
“Clean at last! Clean at last!” I exulted to my kitty, ever so tempted to hoist all of her five furry pounds into the air jubilantly!
Unfortunately however, Miss Pretty would have no part in my juvenile behavior as she has been apparently dealing with her own teen angst. Her protective “fort” (i.e. the old desktop computer with the dot-matrix printer and sheet thrown over the top) where she used to hide was gone; her litter box had been replaced with a swanky new covered number now lurking in the bathroom; and for no discernable reason other than maybe the plushiness feels good underneath her paws, she has taken to spending some serious OCD moments staring endlessly at the fleur-de-lis pattern on one of the new throw rugs…
Mesmerizing...
But stepping onto the magnificent ceramic surface of the kitchen floor to replace Pretty’s bowl of kibble in order to bring some semblance back to our bat-cave, I heard/felt the unmistakable sound/sensation of what can only be described as “sticky”…
And on hands and knees with nothing but wet paper towels until midnight, this middle-aged glamorous Hollywood gal flopped down like a bloated sea otter on her belly and meticulously cleaned the kitchen square by square with dual flippers.
>>><<<
In hindsight, I suppose my teen rebellion might have stemmed from being milked like a heifer to repeat scene after scene for my beloved Actress while the crew rolled tape and shot extensive footage of our Background Actors’ reactions. (Not really sure they can do that without paying me more money, but in this economy I’m just thrilled to have a show!)
After all, the Producers legitimately owned me for the day, and who am I to turn down an opportunity to perform, let alone receive a well-scripted hug (four times over!) from one of the brooding cast members of an old television series (somewhere in the “90210” area) that I grew up watching?
But after a few days off on our one week hiatus, vacuuming almost daily like an OCD Adult and spending stupid amounts of time fretting about hanging up coats, dusting table tops, worrying about proper placements of shoes in closets and stressing for no reason other than my own ridiculous insanity, I took a step back.
Sometimes you gotta be true to your self, and for now, I’m choosing to be a brat on hiatus.
With three-day-unwashed hair, disheveled pajamas (and far too much black eyeliner), I popped by the local Mickey D’s drive-thru for an Angus burger. And sharing the feast with my heroic feline sidekick in front of the television we watched the TiVo’d premiere of my new show happily together.
(And only AFTERWARD, did I actually hang up my jacket!)
Livin’ the dream,
~Teen Rebel P ;-)
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