Anna Rodrigo

I woke up this morning thinking I was married to Anna Rodrigo. And never have I been more frightened. My biggest fears...flying, jail (although I love saying things like "this ice cream is jail good") and dinners with boring people ain't got nothing on my fear of Anna Rodrigo.

Anna was pregnant with her second child when she was 15. She was still in 7th grade. She may, in fact, still be in 7th grade. She wore huge hoop earrings. She had a flat top and a tail that she chewed on. She beat up my friend Jojo (a Jewish, musical theater girl) because she didn't like that Jojo "thought she was all that cuz she could sing and shit." A week later, Jojo came back to school with her own hoop earrings and a Puerto Rican accent and she shoved Anna into a locker. Jojo got suspended because Anna was pregnant. Apparently you can't push a pregnant bully into a locker...in the 7th grade.

Anna's pregnant belly was as much a bully prop as her tail and those fucking hoop earrings. She would shove people out of lunchroom lines because "My fuckin' baby need a twinkie." Her baby bump made her bigger and more intimidating. She could part a crowd in a corridor like no other. Bitch was the Moses of our Junior High School.

She would push an empty stroller around school "cuz I'm preppin' for Anna Junior." These 7th grade Jewish eyes had a hard time comprehending the visual. And the day my knees buckled was the day I tried to make sense of the visual. I found myself in a dead-lock stare. Staring at Anna Rodrigo. I was at my locker and she was talking shit with some of her friends (and by friends I mean girls who were so scared of her but did not want to get beaten up so instead they split a necklace with her) and she was wearing a bikini top. Flat-top. Tail. 8 months pregnant and a bikini top. Mid-winter in New England. Are you scared?

I couldn't help but STARE. It was one of the greatest things I had ever seen. Fuck THE DAVID, I got Anna Rodrigo. Well, she caught my eyes. And this is how it went.

"The fuck you lookin' at? You Jewin' my belly? My belly could beat yo ass up. Talkin' bout you 'lil Jew. My belly could knock you right good."

Then I blacked out. She never touched me. But I blacked out. Literally. My first experience with sniffing salts.

And this morning, I woke up from a nightmare that the pregnant woman in my bed was Anna Rodrigo.

It wasn't. It was Meesh. And she was pretty and sweet. But she was chewing on her tail and her belly did kick my ass.