Bathroom Monologue: Hers

Hers were small rebellions. She signed the petition, but did not wear the pins or flaunt the rules by putting on forbidden clothing. When Dolden Prep finally rescinded the dress code it seemed half the girls showed up in thigh-bearing skirts and every boy had a band shirt to sport. Not she. She wore the same navy blouse and skirt every day, and once again refused to wear their pins. All she did was undo one stitch at the bottom left of the skirt. She let it alone until another stitch came out by nature of wear and laundry. Then another. Week by week, and soon day by day, she let the tear climb up her leg in a naughtier way than any boy’s hand could. She did not mend for an appearance of style. She let the idiot revolutionaries gossip about her ragged wardrobe. She listened happily to the gossip, too, when the rip climbed higher than any liberated girl allowed her miniskirt to go. The teachers could do nothing, and her fellow students in their Grateful Dead shirts and Prada shoes gawked at her indecency. She let it climb her until she heard the rumor one morning that she had a boyfriend who liked seeing her this way. It made her smile as she finally took one of their now ironically sheik protest pins, and used it to clasp the tear in her skirt.