It's Not Easy Being Greenberg

Last night I participated n a Hellogiggles storytelling show at UCB. The theme was “sleep overs.”  My story was kind of dark, but so am I. Anyway, I figured I might as well post the story since I wrote it. Whatever. 

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For me, sleepovers have always been kinda like every other human interaction — stressful and not worth it. 

I just never felt comfortable spending that much time at the houses of my little goy girlfriends, despite the fact that their houses were always stocked with my all time favorite shit — year-round halloween candy, like every color squeeze-it, and people who are not my family. 

In addition to that early onset social anxiety, I spent the greater part of my childhood terrified and convinced I’d be kidnapped. Growing up in the Bay Area, kidnapping was all the rage — kind of like the way nail art is now. Everywhere you went in town, there’d be a bulletin board plastered with faces of missing children. It was like living inside of a Soul Asylum video. 

I was about 7 or 8 years old at the height of all this stranger danger.  My turning point came when a girl from the next town over was kidnapped while walking home from the skating rink. That’s when I decided to take measures into my own hands. 

I wasn’t actually doing anything to prevent getting kidnapped, just making sure I would have the most detailed missing child poster ever. 

If I changed clothes before bed (like someone who is not a dirtbag), I’d make sure to leave my room, go up to one or both of my parents and try to make small talk just so they’d see me and know what I was wearing for my “last seen in” outfit. This was more challenging that is sounds because I had roughly 300 different CareBears nightgowns and because my parents never once paid attention to me. 

I also started taking a new picture of myself on a nightly basis, so my parents would have a recent picture for my missing child poster. Since this was before digital cameras, I’d basically hold the camera out and fucking wing it. You can’t get more recent than a picture from the same night you were abducted. I mean, genius. Not only was I a realist, I was ahead of my time on the whole “selfie” front. Coincidentally, 20 years later, I now post pictures of myself on a nightly basis because no one wants me. So, yeah. 

Thankfully, by the time I started junior high, enough time had passed for my kidnapping fears to subside, which was awesome because I happened to be super popular in junior high. JK, I had 3 friends and we ate lunch in the science lab every day. 

It was Melanie, Robin, Lisa, and me, and to my credit, I was the coolest out of the group — I had been to New York a bunch of times, I had my period and those bitches didn’t, that was about it. 

The four of us did everything together — hip-hop dance classes, buying peach scented bath beads and/or peach flavored bin candy at the mall, and, of course, sleepovers every single weekend. I never saw it, but it’s safe to say we has a real Sisterhood of The Traveling Pants vibe going on. 

Actually, to this day, we still do everything together. We even got married and had babies all at the same time. And by we I mean them and by got married and had babies, I mean think they’re better than me. Sorry if the highlight of my week isn’t going to Costco to buy a fucking 64 pack of healthy choice fudgesicles, Melanie. Ugh! Anyway, moving on…

Polly Klass was kidnapped at knifepoint from her house in the Bay Area during a slumber party at the age of 12.  

I know, this news really affected me too — total setback in my whole kidnapping thing. It hit close to home since I was also at a slumber party that night—also in the Bay Area. I was also 12 years old. And, unfortunately, it would also be my last slumber party…well, for like a few months. I bounced back pretty quickly. I mean, life is for the living, you guys. No day but today. 

But that just goes to show, you can outgrown and conquer even the most paralyzing childhood fear, but Melanie will always be a huge bitch. 

All I can say is that my life is pretty plain

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