My Festival Faux Pas

I was a nerd in primary school.  In an unforgiving social hierarchy built on Adidas snap pants and Tamagotchi’s, my yellow tracksuits and sprout sandwiches guaranteed me a place precisely at the bottom.  Multiple attempts at social climbing, including such brilliant ideas as wearing tights on my head to resemble the long hair I was so lacking, only served to secure my fate.  Most people would quietly move on from their childhood torments, but not I.  I carry my ex-nerdism around everywhere I go, a cumbersome chip on my shoulder. 

Ever since my miss-spent childhood, I have been waiting for the opportunity to correct my peers’ error in judgement.  Someday, I have mused wistfully year upon year, someday I will run into one of my popular counterparts, and then, then they will see!  I will be looking effortlessly fabulous, my now genuinely long hair cascading perfectly down my back.  And I will say ‘Oh, hey, fancy running into you!’  And go on to explain that I’ve been so busy with my glamorous writing career, I’ve forgotten all about primary school!  ‘Wow, Katie has become so fashionable and cool!’  They will think.  And the injustice will be forever rectified. 

  

Now, I realize that this scenario requires me to be forever looking alarmingly amazing.  Which unfortunately is what brings me to the point of this column.  I failed.  I screwed the whole damn thing up.

Twice a year, Tom and I attend an uber-hippy celebration called Confest.  Confest is a heaving mass of alternative culture, where nakedness, mud baths and spontaneous singing are offset by the constant beat of a bongo drum.  It was here that my image as a dirty hippy was so cruelly sealed. 

It was day four.  My hippy-festival-hygiene had degenerated to the point of comparability to a ground-dwelling monkey.  My legs and armpits resembled forests.  My hair carried the dirt of fifteen mud baths.  And I was crying.  Sobbing like a hyena.  I had lost Tom, and the lack of both phone reception and sleep had caused me to react in the most dramatic of fashions. 

‘Katie?’  Ventured a wary voice from behind me.  I whirred around frantically.  And there in front of me, looking perfectly turned out in an inexplicably still white shift dress, was my worst nightmare.  Sarah from primary school. 

After several seconds of quivering, stunned, in my underwear, I realized that this was actually happening.  So I wiped the dirty snot from my nose and made a desperate attempt at a recovery.  ‘Oh hey!’  I spluttered.  ‘I’ve, um, I’ve forgotten all about primary school!’

Sarah stared at me as if I needed to be institutionalized.  And then she made an excuse, went to kiss me on the cheek, thought better of it, and left.  That was it.  That was my how my so oft-longed for encounter unfolded. 

What a horrendously ruinous coincidence!  I thought as I returned to my sobbing.  How is it that I’ve spent my whole bloody life looking fabulous, and the one time I’m a touch underdone, I run into Sarah!

It was then that I spotted Tom.  He was sitting on a log, beaming at me lovingly.  He’d witnessed the whole encounter.  As he enveloped me in his comforting embrace, I realized with sudden clarity that I was not fabulous, never had been.  I was Katie.  And that was ok.