When I was a little girl, I had two great loves: my pink and blue stuffed clown bear with a bell in its tail (ahh, Jingle Bear, sweet Jingle Bear), and my Daddy. From the first moments I remember, my Dad has been my one great hero and continues to be to this day. He is the one person in my life who has always believed in me no matter what. I think everyone needs someone to believe in them; to have someone to think you are great even when you fail. Luckily, I have made a handful of very special friends in life who I can say really believe in me, and I in them, but my Dad has been the only person that I can say has never doubted me for a second every minute of my life.
There was a period in my life during which this against-the-odds belief in his little girl was not exactly deserved, and it is a story that has gone down in family folklore for many years now. We ominously call it the “Boy in the Kitty Cat Suit” story; it's so outrageous only a four year old could have created it,. and only a Daddy would believe it. It began on a Saturday afternoon, a day I remember distinctly.
There was a period in my life during which this against-the-odds belief in his little girl was not exactly deserved, and it is a story that has gone down in family folklore for many years now. We ominously call it the “Boy in the Kitty Cat Suit” story; it's so outrageous only a four year old could have created it,. and only a Daddy would believe it. It began on a Saturday afternoon, a day I remember distinctly.
My Dad is an attorney who sometimes would spend a Saturday afternoon finishing up a long week of work. Of course, his darling daughter begged to come along, believing that this place she called “Daddy’s Working” was the most majestic and wonderful place to spend a Saturday with its soft drink machine with never-ending root beer and the snack machine filled with sugary treats a dieting mother never allowed near the house. Of course, Dad happily indulged my request, suspecting it was the instincts of a budding lawyer he saw in those four-year-old eyes. Maybe those Saturdays were simply meant to inculcate in me the strange interest I would develop for the eighty hour week law profession I currently disdain. Despite all my denying I will someday have to admit that I really do want my name on a law degree, hopefully this harrowing incident hasn’t ruined my chances.
As a four year old, I must have forgotten how anticlimactic the thrill of the office really was. After drinking enough root beer, one can only draw so many purple crayon stick families on yellow legal paper before beginning to feel fidgety and noticing that the purple looks ugly on yellow anyway. After abandoning my art pursuits I decided to expend some energy on a healthy constitutional around the office hallway. This was a habitual request of mine, I think I felt some thrilling taste of freedom at getting to walk unaccompanied around such an important place. This five year old was also a big fan of the fictional child miscreant Eloise, which may have inspired the upcoming events, as this hallway seemed as inviting and exciting as the halls of the Plaza Hotel. For some crazy, inexplicable reason that, sixteen years later I cannot fathom, I decided that in true Eloise fashion, it was time to make my mark in the world. Thank goodness I didn’t write my name on the walls in lipstick or etch my initials in the mahogany doors, but I what I did may have been worse. My five year old little brain decided it would be oh-so-fun to walk uninvited into every dark office on the floor, pick up the shiny blue “Bic” pens and draw scribbles and circles all over whatever yellow pad or desk set the poor victims left prey on their desks. I can still distinctly remember the sound of the blue pen cutting across the page, and the way it looked in that dark office. I don’t remember thinking that this was strange behavior at all.
I must have returned to my loving father without any hint of remorse or guilt because he did not even question why my stroll lasted much longer than usual. Obviously, the office was in an uproar Monday morning, questioning everyone with a small child who might have been the culprit, including my Dad. Knowing that I was one of a couple of kids who occasionally visited the office, Dad's secretary named me high on the "list of usual suspects," but my dear father adamantly opposed this suspicion saying confidently that “my daughter would never do that!” The best part is, he believed it too, he really did. That makes me swell with pride, and love, and respect to know I have such a great Dad, but simultaneously, makes me sad to know that his trust was entirely misplaced.
I would like to say I admitted this transgression and was horribly sorry, but when my Dad mentioned the incident to me (in no way questioning whether it was me, but to find out if I might know who did it), I proceeded to tell an incredible yarn that I’m sure grew increasing unbelievable with each word. I told Dad, "it was not me!" (Which would have been sufficient defense, but then I decided to make up a little story that surely, I must have known, would lead my Dad to only one conclusion.) I told him that I did, happen to, maybe have, possibly seen a, quote “little boy in a kitty cat suit” running around the office. (Why I decided to include a “kitty cat suit” was beyond me, it didn’t help my story, but my Dad didn’t doubt it for a second. I could see that made up kid running around in the dark hallway in my imagination too.)
Dad says now he imagined a three year old in a Halloween costume, a kitty cat. But my imaginings involved a kid in a pink sweat suit with a giant picture of a cat sewn at an angle on the torso wrapping around the waste and onto the hips (this image was entirely contrived but I still remember it vividly). Dad was led by the hand to believe that it was all the fault of this little kitty cat boy, which was slightly plausible because apparently one of the secretaries had a little boy that often came up to work with her too, and, well, he could have been in a pink, kitty sweat suit, right?!
Maybe I am a lawyer in the making. Maybe I have a gift that lets me take a story and run with it Anyway, armed with that additional information, Dad vigorously defended my honor -- "It wasn't her." "It wasn't." "It most certainly wasn't." And, eventually the events of that weekend were forgotten, no harm done.
Of course, I cannot tell this story without acknowledging that the loving eyes of the hero were a bit blinded by his own affection, but when you’re a Dad, I really think that’s okay especially because I would say I’m better for it.
Looking back on this event many years later I am compelled to wonder about what in the hell was I thinking. I’m the girl who has never been able to cheat on a test in my life. I’m the girl who still feels bad about that pistachio I once ate while grocery shopping with my mom in the fourth grade. I’m the girl who can never make myself order water and actually get Diet Coke at a fast food place, even when they are practically inviting you to do so. How is it that my perception was so skewed that I thought graffiti-ing on some poor man’s sacred legal pad was appropriate?
Despite my musings, the "little boy in a kitty cat suit" day was a very good day indeed because it stands for the proposition that someone, my Dad, has always believed in me and will always believe me.
I don’t remember the day of my confession as well, but apparently I told my Dad the truth many years later, removed enough from the event that he just laughed about it and told me never to lie again. But his being able to laugh about it and forgive me on the spot just added to his stature in my eyes. I have never been able to really lie to him since that day, I think I have too much respect for the rock solid belief he has in me. To lie in the face of that kind of love is an insult to everything that is good and beautiful in life. He says that's the way Papa trusted him. Implicitly. Even in the face of contradictory facts.
More broadly, the secret to happiness isn’t figuring out “yourself” while pouring out your life story to some shrink, it is in having or finding someone or some people who are willing to give you the benefit of the doubt no matter what, ever, ever. Its about having just one person who always believes in you. I have it.
Author’s note: This is a very rough draft, I would like to have spent more time on and hopefully will have the opportunity to do so. I know it is cluttered, and I am embarrassed that I haven’t had time to fix those parts. That is probably where I need the most work. I think if I can simplify, it will be more succinct, clear, easy to read and funnier. But I had a lot of fun with this and plan on cleaning it up a lot. I am not sure what I think is working well, perhaps the flow of ideas? I am not sure. It seemed to flow pretty well once I got started and I enjoyed writing this more than anything I have ever written for class.
copyright 2008 kec
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