The summer before my freshman year of high school, my mom moved my enormous breasts and I from Tyler, Texas, eight hours away, to Laredo, Texas.

She was born and raised in Laredo. After my parents got divorced, she was pulled back home, emotionally,  wanting to be closer to her parents and siblings.

Quick geography lesson, guys.

Not that I am super awesome at geography or anything.  In fact, I am so un-awesome at geography that I cheated on a United States map test my sophomore year of high school. The teacher found the cheat note at the end of the day, on the floor. He didn’t know to whom it belonged and, since no one fessed up, all of his classes had to take the goddamn map test over. I mean,  it only consisted of labeling the how ever many states there are and stuff. But still.

Sorry guys.  It was me.  Such a douche bag move.

Anyways, where was I?

Ugh, this Bachelor wedding on TV is making me want to stab myself in the eyes.

Wait, what?

Right.  Geography.

* Ahem *

Tyler is in East Texas. Lots of thick Texas accents there.  Conservative.  It was  a dry county when I lived there. This meant you had to drive down a country highway, to the next county over, if you wanted to buy booze.  Not that any of this matters.  I so wasn’t drinking yet.   I’m just trying to give you an idea of how white it is in Tyler.

Laredo sits eight hours south of Tyler,  right on the U.S./Mexico border. My house was ten minutes from Mexico.  There are cacti there. It’s hot as balls. Lots of people with thick, Mexican accents. Not only is it not a dry county, its dripping wet.  Like , for all practical purposes, no drinking age wet. Not that any of this matters. I am just trying to give you an idea of how not white it is in Laredo.

Cue the big move announcement.  Cue the fourteen year old drama.

You are ruining my life, mom! Gah!

You are moving me away from the boy man I am going to marry, Mom!

I hate you!

I ran away for like an hour. Down the street. I remember hiding along the side of a house, with my trash bag satchel in tow. I cried. I got hungry. I went home.

Apparently all that shit talking got me nowhere, but Laredo. We moved there soon after middle school ended and holy culture shock, batman!

I was a white, blonde, huge big breasted, little Texas country girl  And holy hell did I sound like it, y’all.

All my vowel sounds were long.

Good n-eye-ght.  Eye am fixin’ to go to sleep.

Good-bEYE!

I stuck out more than common sense at a TeaBagger Convention!

I kid! I kid!

Fast forward to the first party of the new school year!

Lots of people were there,  from freshman to seniors. It was at someone’s house. All the  senior guys were grilling outside. We were all dropping it like it was hot, when one of them called me “Cheech”.

I laughed and rerolled my jeans. In my head, I was all, “that totes must mean fine lookin’ white girl! Or something supah awesome like that! Thank God I wore my Wet N Wild gloss and these jeans up to my chin, yo!”

WRONG!

Turned out, “cheech” is short for”chichona”!

What does chichona mean you ask?

* Waaaait foooor iiiit! *

“BIG TITS”.

And the name spread. Like a disgusting, itchy case of something gross.

Don’t get me wrong. It wasn’t like they were intentionally, “Yo, gimme your motherfuckin lunch money, goddamn Cheech, before I push your goddamn face in your stupid fucking locker”, mean to me.

No, no no! They were accepting.  And pretty nice, actually.  It was more like, “Heya, Cheech! Wanna sit with us at lunch today?! “or “Cheech!!! What flavor Boone’s bottles should we get? Strawberry Hill all the way right!? FUCKING CHEECH!!! See ya later!”

I laughed. I hated it.

I always laughed, though. Harder when I was nervous.  I still do.

And I was so nervous. Afraid if I said something, they would no longer like the new girl  and I would be kicked out of the cool kids club.

Holy grow a pair, Allison!

They probably would have stopped immediately, if I had only asked. But not only did I not ask, I acted like it didn’t bother me in the least.

To make a short story long, I finally drank got up the nerve to tell everyone to stop calling me that and, eventually, they did.  It didn’t happen over night, though. You could still hear the occasional, “HEY CHEECH! WHAT UUUUUP!” echoing down the hall.

Gradually, I went from “Cheech” to “The freshmen formerly known as Cheech” and, finally, back to “Allison”.

No harm. No foul.  I am over it and can totally laugh about it now. But, my heart does ache a little when I think about 14 year old Allison. Shit, it even aches when I think of 24 year old, Allison. The confidence did not come easy to her, but it finally did. For the most part, anyways.  She is still a work in progress.

* Moving right along *

My senior year, rather than asking my mom to get me a car for graduation, I begged for a breast reduction.

And not even because of the whole cheech thing.

Really, I just didn’t feel comfortable in my own skin. I always thought, “How cool would it be to have people look at my face and stuff when they talk to me?!”

And fourteen years later, two cup sizes smaller, they do!

*Sigh*

Teenage angst. It’s a bitch, ya’ll.

I’m just glad no one called me “Manos grandes” or something like that. It would have been a major drag to have had to chop off my hands.