The Cool Girls Coloring Book

At age 5, I was sex-crazed.
At age 6, I was Danny Zucko.
At age 7, I was a young entrepreneur.

That's right, a young entrepreneur. This stage in my life came shortly after I realized I could never be Danny Zucko because I was missing the one part that made him the Danny Zucko, (There is a scene where Rizzo asks Danny, "Where ya goin', to flog your log?" and I realized that va-jay-jays look nothing like logs unless mine was just THAT unique which I'm sure it wasn't and even then I wouldn't know because not only did I not have many to compare it to, I was not all that fascinated with mine and therefore did not look at it that often. Or grab it, for that matter, which, YES, some girls my age had grown accustomed to doing, and then it hit me: something ELSE looks like a log, though! A penis! AHA!), and so I moved on to, of course, what would obviously come next after it's hit you that you're a girl and you'll stay a girl (unless, of course, you do the whole "operation" thing, and NO, I'm not talking about that extremely inappropriate game with the naked man lying on the table where you stick things in all his holes, nooks, and cranny's and then start laughing when BZZZ! he's shrieking in pain because you just stuck a COLD, metal STICK in HIS STICK which I'm sure doesn't feel very good to cross sticks like that. I'm talking about the kind of operation that went down when you see a half-boy/half-girl, kinda-like-a-boy-but-then-look!-oh-that-looks-girlish...to make a long story short, BOY GEORGE.) So what comes after this self-realization? ENTREPRENEURSHIP, OF COURSE!

It all started out with this really smokin' hot chick with some fly 80's do---

*Note to readers: I have just realized that I have said many things that may portray me as a lesbian. I, Natasha Lee Ferrier, am NOT a lesbian. I just sometimes SAY lesbian "things." Thank you for your time, and attention.

---so this smokin' hot chick with sex hair, basically, had been drawn on a white piece of paper. (Is the color of the paper relevant? No. Does it add an unnecessary adjective? Yes.) So, I drew (keep in mind it was just her neck up, so her whole face filled the page) a girl, and showed it to my mother. My mother likes it. Not only does she like it, she then goes and pulls a Forrest Gump on me and tells me she likes it a lot. So what do I do? What any child would do to make their mother happy, draw more and more AND MORE until there is an unnecessary amount when really your mother was just trying to be nice and didn't really like it all that much to begin with!

After I had 13 girls...

1.Sex Hair Girl
2. Glasses and Braces Girl
3. Short Hair Girl
4. Long Hair Girl
5. Medium Hair Girl
6. Black Girl with Beads Hanging From Her Head
7. Black Girl with those Big Ball-Things Attached To The Hairbands Hanging From Her Head
8. Girl with Two Lines For Eyes (I was trying to make her look like this Chinese girl in my class. COME ON, I WAS SEVEN.)
9. Girl With Hair Like A Boy (I was trying to make her look like this lesbian in my class. Lesbians at 7 years old, you ask? Uhhh YEAH.)
10. Girl With Side Ponytail
11. Girl With Braids (Dorothy wannabe)
12. Sex Hair Girl #2 (but with longer eyelashes)
13. Sex Hair Girl #3 (I mean I knew she was going to be the favorite.)

I didn't color them, mind you. I was going to draw them all and then staple them together and then show everyone and then color them. (It's called ORDER.) (Some call it OCD, I call it order.) (Slingblade.) However, after I showed my mother, she really did go nuts.

"YOU'RE BRILLIANT!"

Next thing I knew, we were at Kinko's.

"Make the copies."
"I want more copies."
"No my daughter drew them."
"She's a genius it's not a big deal just make the copies."
"Natasha go grab some neon folders."
"Natasha don't drop the neon folders all over the floor I just said you were a genius."
"She's still a genius."
"Natasha go grab some labeling stickers."
"Natasha go grab those silver and gold sparkly pens."
"Natasha I know what I'm doing I'm in business grab the sparkly things right now."
"The sparkly things are very important."
"My daughter really is a genius."

I was feelin' pretty good, my mom was good at that, making me feel like I was the most special person on the planet. If there's one thing parents should do for their kids, it's not buy them Osh Kosh BiGosh overalls or enroll them in Art Class, it's tell them what a genius they are. Anyway, I'm sick of being sappy and meaningful; back to ME.

So it had just hit me that was a genius and because of this I suddenly had a lot of responsibility. I was going to sell these coloring books and I was going to be held accountable for the profit I made. I put the labeling stickers on the neon folders, put a coloring book in each folder, posed for a baker's dozen of pictures my mother took of me, grabbed the gold and silver sparkly pens and went to school.

THEY WERE A HIT.

Man, I was bankin' all through Recess. Cha-Ching! Cha-ching! Cha-ching! At one cent to 5 cents a pop, (whatever change customers had left over from lunch), I was making some serious dough. I used the gold and silver pens to write their names on the labels, and on each of the covers of the coloring book, I would draw a little heart and inside of it write, "GIRLS ONLY."

But it wasn't long until boys started pulling me aside to ask if I had any "stuff" left over.

"Whaddaya got?"
(That was my catchphrase. I decided that every genius needed a catchphrase.)

"Two pennies."

"Hand 'em over."

Whenever boys bought a coloring book from me, I would write on the cover inside of a heart, "GIRLS AND BOYS ONLY." I guess that meant men and women weren't allowed. (Although I did have a woman customer once, who thanked me for drawing a black girl, and for including a girl with glasses. Shit! I thought, why didn't I draw a black girl with glasses? I got over it when I started making tens of twenties.) (I know what you're thinking. That's a lot of pennies.)

However, my short-lived success proved to be just that. It wasn't long until customers, and myself, weren't coming back in after Recess when the teachers were calling us. The lines for the goods had just become too long. One hour wasn't nearly enough time for distribution! My first grade teacher crawled underneath the slide one day and picked one up, reading the cover aloud:

"THE COOL GIRLS COLORING BOOK."

And then she banned it.

I had made 12 dollars total from my selling, and though my mother wanted it to go on, wanted to go on strike, wanted to kick my teacher's ass, I had grown weary of the business life. So monotonous. I mean, I hardly had time for family anymore and I was rarely home for supper. It had taken me over, and it was time to go back to being a kid again. But I will never regret experiencing life as a young entrepreneur. I just wish I had included more Sex Hair Girls. (They were the favorite.)