Phone Call

I hung up the phone with an audible sigh. I hated the weekly call from my parents. They wanted nothing more than to try to convince me to move back in with them, and convert back to their plastic society. My parents are the perfect life-sized versions of Ken and Barbie; perfect hair, perfect clothes, not a thing out of place. Society told them to conform a certain way and they did - to a T. Years of brain washing by corporations and television had rotted their easily malleable brains. Nothing could be out of the ordinary for them. Even their last name was completely ordinary, Smith. How much more generic could you get? I unfortunately used to be just like them, blond, perky and always full of smiles. I did exactly what they told me and never strayed. And why not? It was fun to be perfect. NOT! I don't remember what exactly made me decide to break from the vicious cycle of perfection, perhaps it was my wardrobe of pinks, beiges, and powder blues that did it. Or the mandatory clean room with pink walls and frills galore, but whatever it was, I'm glad I broke ranks. I didn't change my ways in one fell swoop however. It took time. Mostly because at that point I was still slight brainwashed myself. It began with changing my name. Not legally; my parents wouldn't let me. My real name is, well, Kitty. Yes Kitty, like a cat. The girliest name on the face of the planet. A name I despise with all my being. I wish I could murder the name Kitty. Stab it with a knife and watch it bleed then rip out its guts while it screams in agony. Anyway, I made people call me "Crimson." It sounded darker and cooler. Well hell anything was better than Kitty. My parents had a fit about me wanting to change my name, but did I care? Not at all. The parents still call me Kitty, convinced I will someday go out of my right mind and enjoy that hideous name again. After my name change, I dyed my hair black, and got my ears double pierced- practically a sin in my family. Then I moved on to a stud in the ear cartilage, an even bigger sin for which I was severely punished. Then a lip ring. Oh yeah, I was bad ass, to them. My clothes went from pink to red, and from beige to black. My parents threatened to send me to military school for my "demoralizing behavior." At that moment I made it my mission in life to do everything in my power to piss off my parents, go against the grain, and just flat out drive them crazy. If they didn't like it, I did it. After high school I moved out here to Watershed Heights. It was far from the 'green lawned', identical houses my parents lived by, and I loved it.