during the sixth grade, i went through a phase where i decided i was a boy. i had short hair, wore a collared shirt tucked in my khakis and had an extremely low voice i used when i was playing "hello judge."
yesterday, i could hear my mom screaming into the phone. "how do i put it in? which hole does it go into?"
i had to resist the urge to laugh. had i not known she was talking about a phone cord she wanted to plug into the receiver, i would assume she were having strange conversations with strangers.
well anyway, after a while, she became frustrated more than she already was and tossed the phone to me. the guy on the other side asked me if i knew my name and told me exactly what he'd told her. as he talked, my mom screamed some more at him from across the room and i could tell he was sweating his armpits out.
after ten minutes, he asked me if i were my mom's son. i didn't say anything. he asked again. i didn't say anything then either. when he asked a final time, i told him i was my mom's daughter, all the while wishing i could tell him i was my mom's boyfriend (that would've been real insane).
he stuttered out his apology, "oh, i'm so sorry. it's just that you sound so much like a boy it's crazy."
that was definitely not helping his situation and a blow to my ego. that's when i decided my sixth grade wish was starting to come true.
when i'd told my mom all of this, she just laughed and laughed and said that she thought i spoke like a man too.
the worst part about all this: this wasn't the first time i'd been claimed i was a boy by a random stranger.
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