Throwback Throw Down

Picture it: A bookworm girl in her junior year of high school. 1990-something.

Some girl was going to beat me up. A girl I didn’t even know. I didn’t even know what she looked like, but I heard through the grapevine she was coming to get me. She thought I was after her boyfriend* and while I did like her boyfriend I didn’t like him enough to fight for him.

I was nervous. I was nervous all the time anyway, but then I’m going to have to fight some girl because she thinks I’m after her boyfriend?  I didn’t want to fight.  But it didn’t matter if I wanted to or not.  It was only a matter of time before I’d run into her and she’d confront me. There was no reasoning with or walking away from a girl like her. I had to be prepared, right?

I was scared, but I wasn’t about to let someone beat the crap out of me. The only fighting moves I knew were from Jody Watley’s VHS workout tape Dance to Fitness. THat wasn’t going to work so I asked my brother and his friend to teach me to fight. Kind of. I’m fairly sure they were teaching me moves they’d only seen in movies. We practiced in my brother’s room with a stuffed army backpack or rucksack that worked as a punching bag. I practiced and practiced punching that bag and my brother and his friend giggled their butts off.  I felt prepared. Sort of.

The day of the fight came. My friends and I were headed to a friend’s house. I knew both the boyfriend and my new nemesis would be there. We pulled up to the house in my mom’s maroon minivan. I just radiated ‘cool’. The girlfriend showed up. And then a second girlfriend showed up and they started fighting each other.

(A) I was desperately relieved I didn’t have to fight her and I didn’t have to use my not too stellar fighting skills and (B) it was laughable. I prepared for punching, hitting, grabbing,  and maybe kicking. You know, fighting. How did they fight? They slapped, scratched and pulled hair. If I wasn’t so relieved that I didn’t have to fight I would have laughed out loud. I’m confident to this day I could have taken her down, but I’m glad I never had to test that theory (or my brother’s training).

*Said boyfriend was not of the bookworm crowd.