Meet me—and my representative.

Know the feeling when you go on a first date or a job interview? Those nervous butterflies spawn in your stomach and the inner monologue lectures smile, don’t blurt out the first thing that comes to mind, don’t eat anything green that might get stuck in your teeth…

I call this spit-shined and watered down version of myself the representative. All the good qualities, none of the crazy. I mean, do we really wanna show the extreme on a first date? Hell no, they’d never buy the mad cow!

Of course, as a former navy wife and the girl voted most dramatic (Millbrook high school, class of ’98,) I have to wheel out the representative more often than your average Jane. Meetings with teachers, running into neighbors, at the grocery store,(Salesclerk: “Can I help you? Me: “I dunno, can you?”) Hell, even at family gatherings I live in fear of opening up my mouth and letting loose the inner demons for fear of an intervention. Or an exorcism.

I have no patience, I don’t tolerate stupidity, disorganization bugs the stuffing outta me and if I don’t get a fair amount of me time I go a little nuts. I’m also loyal to a fault, wicked funny and a generous human being, but most can’t get past the control freak neuroses.

In most situations my “real” personality is revealed in a manner akin to a burlesque show. A little flash here, a glimpse there, to test the proverbial reception. I want to know how much a person can tolerate before I let it all hang out in the breeze. This is my M.O, with one notable exception.

When I write it’s there, in your face, no holds barred. The representative is banished to the dank recesses of my brain because seriously, who wants to read a book by a chick who pussyfoots around the frigging point? Or one who’s been given an emotional lobotomy?

“Not I,” said the little red hen, “Cluck cluck.”