My mom used to tell me that I just had to wait for puberty to hit and then I wouldn’t be ugly anymore. She also said that if I didn’t want to wait, I could go ask the weird old lady who worked at the rundown carnival for a wish. I decided to take my chances and ask her to make me look like a celebrity. No longer a scrawny prepubescent girl with braces, I was now a seventy-eight year old comedic legend clocking in at four foot ten.
The summer I turned into Danny DeVito was the best summer of my life. All my insecurities about my underdeveloped body disappeared. I stopped comparing myself to the hot girls in my grade because honestly it was just unfair to them. Who needs boobs when you have impeccable comedic timing? Finally, the coolest boys in school took notice of me, asking me how they could mimic my sick facial hair. Instead of getting a boyfriend, though, I just ended up gaining their respect. My sexy South Jersey accent was envied by underdeveloped boys going through brutal voice changes. Me? I had a prostate so developed it was cancerous.
All the girls wanted my autograph and all the failed actors who were getting their GED at the night school wanted to be me. Wherever I went, sixty year old divorcees would throw their bras at me, which were much prettier than the padded tank tops my mom had bought me at Target. Life was great, except my newfound popularity - no, fame - started to get to me. I began to fear that I had become a Danny DeVito Icarus. My ego was inflated, yet I couldn’t form those friendships I’ve been told are important for my social development without being burned by people just using me for clout or to act out their favorite sitcom scenes. I realized no one actually liked me, and they just wanted a piece of the DeVito flair.
I concluded that the moral of my adventure was that I should have been more specific with my initial request from the weird carnival lady. I went back and asked her plain and simple to make my exterior reflect what’s on the inside. Now I look like a five foot eight Scandinavian supermodel, which has been fine.
