ON BLAST; subcategory: People Who Have Made Me Cry; subcategory: Strangers; subcategory: Sidewalks

I am one of those terrible people who suddenly take up running every few months and proceed to give it up just as quickly. Against all reason, I regularly find myself buying into the hype. The truth is, I hate running, and I'm hilariously bad at it. I am not putting running on blast today though. Its time will come.

2005: I went running around my neighborhood after school and passed a house I had passed many times before. Some faceless jerk from within yelled, "RUN, FATTY! RUN!" out of his window.

I cried all the way home/the entire afternoon. As we previously discussed, I was bound to give up running at some point, and this was just the push I needed.

2012 Update: As time has passed, I find myself less convinced that this incident actually happened. I think it may have been a combination of the wind and my own self-loathing playing tricks on me. 

EVIDENCE:

It was windy

I was obviously not hot but I was not fat either

I was a 15-year-old girl

Who does that? Seriously?

It would have to be some kind of soulless wraith who spends their days waiting at the window to ruin the lives of passing joggers.

The next painful memory involving both sidewalks and strangers really did happen; there was physical proof.

2004: I was walking home from school on the Friday after the first week of freshmen year. I had a spring in my step because I had sort of been making friends! This year was going to be different! I was going to rise like a phoenix from the ashes! 2012 Update: Yeah...that didn't happen. Prepare to eat lunch in the bathroom, Future/past-me.

I passed a couple of girls on the sidewalk that were in my grade but whom I only knew by sight. One of them was eating Doritios straight out of the bag. As we passed, I did that obligatory smile-in-acknowledgement thing. In return, she threw a handful of Doritos in my face, and the two of them walked away laughing.

I couldn't decide on just one crappy ms paint (or equivalent) rendition of this painful memory, so here are four.

What did I do to deserve this?

This is me as a disgusting snowman. Yes, I stuck a chip in a neighbor kid's snowman.

Pidgey is standing in for the the Dorito-thrower because Pidgey is the worst.

This bag is full of stuff that almost killed me.

I cried all the way home/the entire afternoon. To be fair, it was partially because I had Dorito dust in my eyes.



*I made them cool ranch for the sake of comedy. As I recall from shaking chip shards out of my bra later that afternoon, they were nacho cheese.