by Mia Mercado
You’re talking about a stranger, aren’t you? For “Yeah,” go to number 12
What’s your pants size? For “Huh?” go to number 8
I’m just curious. For “I don’t think this is how this works,” go to number 9
No, but I think I know someone who’s the same pants size as you. For “We weren’t even talking about pants,” go to number 10
Was race relevant to whatever conversation you were having? If YES, go to number 13
If NO, go to number 12
Yeah, sure. What an oddly specific thing to consult a choose-your-own-adventure-style guide about. Carry on, my friend.
Nope. Doesn’t seem relevant or necessary to ask about this person’s race. Carry on thinking about more important things, like how dogs have been to space or how dust is mostly skin.
If the context seems appropriate, okay. However, that person might not feel comfortable sharing, and that’s also okay. I promise you, this is probably not the first time this person has been asked about their race. Now you can talk about more important things, like how dogs have been to space or how dust is mostly skin.
Kindly go fuck yourself. ;)
All Rise for the Honorable Mia Mercado
You ever see something that makes you want to go full Sonia Sotomayor? You ever hear a comment that makes you want to call for order in the court of life and channel that Ruth Bader Ginsburg energy? You ever see an episode of Judge Judy and think, “Fuck, I’d love to hit a gavel”? Me too. So, today, as I do every day in private, I will be passing judgment on the cases that come across my desk. Or, more likely, things that simply come into my periphery and make me say, “Not in my court.”
I am Judge Mia Mercado presiding over this proverbial courtroom. Though you cannot see it, I am wearing a robe. It is comfy, cozy, and yes, okay, it is just a Snuggie. Our courtroom’s bailiff is also me but a version of me that is jacked like Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, which brings me to my first case.
Case #1: Me vs. the People Who Leave “The Rock” out of Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson’s Full Name
I know he’s trying to rebrand as an actor, but I will never stop smelling what Dwayne “The Rock” is cooking. He did so much for media representation of people who can raise one of their eyebrows, of whom I am one. I cannot look at current Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson without picturing his late ’90s sideburns that reached halfway down his jawline. You are not allowed to have that body type, call yourself “The Rock,” and then just stop.
We can acknowledge the person he is becoming (“Dwayne Johnson”) while still paying homage to his, and our, history (“The Rock”). It is so ordered.
Cases #2–6: The Food Files
KIT KATS: The proper way to eat a Kit Kat is to break it apart into individual bars as the chocolate gods intended. Biting into a Kit Kat whole, leaving an anarchistic tooth mark across all four bars, is a hate crime against me specifically. Do you want to be the perpetrator of a hate crime?
NOT LIKING DORITOS: Riley recently told me he doesn’t “like” Doritos, which I didn’t realize was even an option. That’s like saying you’d rather not breathe oxygen or live on planet Earth. Sorry, but you’re a human. Humans are programmed to eat Doritos.
“PIZZA” FLAVORING: The Ruling? It’s bad. Artificial pizza flavoring always tastes like someone whispered “pizza” into a pile of puke and mixed in some tomato paste to cover it up. We need to stop asking if we can flavor-blast things and start asking if we should. Particularly when that flavor being blasted is something as sacrilegious as fake pizza. It is an affront to our country, our creator, and real pizza.
BEING RUDE TO RESTAURANT STAFF: People who make a show of whether or not they’re going to tip well, being condescending to a waiter, or making an intentionally big, crumbly mess of everything should be sentenced to a life of only getting to eat pizza-flavored things. You want fries? They’re going to be dusted with a pizza-flavored powder. Did someone order the pizza-flavored beignet? No? Well, you snapped rudely at the hostess and now your delicious dessert is an acidic, powdered-sugar-covered pizza pocket.
SAYING YOU’RE “JUST NOT A SWEETS PERSON”: First of all, how dare you. What did ice cream ever do to you? Were you personally victimized by a chocolate bar? Have you never tried cake? I don’t understand how someone can say they’re not a “sweets person” like they’ve tried every single sweet in existence? If you tell me you are not one for sweets, I will spend the next hour or two or the rest of infinity listing a sweet and seeing if you like it. Coffee cake? Chocolate graham crackers? Perchance a peach cobbler? I can keep going and, legally, I am obligated to.
Case #7: Microaggressions vs. Me
People (read: “white people”) are often worried I’m going to pass judgment on them. If I had a dollar for every time someone has asked whether I’d judge them before they were about to say a thing that was definitely going to be racist, I would have enough money to hire an intern to field those questions for me. It’s a strange balance to want to help people learn while also trying not to absorb every stupid thing everyone’s stupid brain wants to say with their stupid mouths. But in this Courtroom of Implicit Bias, I am in no place to pass judgment.
Once, while talking about race to two coworkers (both of whom aren’t white), I relayed a story about the only time I’d been mistaken as white. It was when I’d gotten pulled over for speeding a few years ago.
On the ticket, next to my name, my address, and the amount of my fine, there was a box that said “RACE.” It was filled in with the word “White.” My license doesn’t designate my race. I certainly didn’t roll down my window and say, “Greetings, Officer. It’s just me, one White Woman going a little too quickly on her way to work!” But the police officer marked my race down as “white” on my ticket anyway.
When I finished the story, my coworkers just stared at me for a moment. Then they talked about the times cops had followed them around department stores, how they notice they get pulled over more when they wear their hair a certain way, how police officers have made a point to ask the group of white friends they’re with whether those white friends were “being bothered.”
My white-adjacent privilege as a lighter-skinned, half-Asian person really jumped the fuck out. While I can see the ways in which the world “others” me clear as day, I’m often still blind to the insidious ways I benefit from anti-blackness, anti-brownness, the fucked-up idea of the “model minority,” etc.
Look, everyone says dumb things, myself very much included. If I actively passed judgment on every dumb thing everyone said to or at or near me, smacking them in the head with my metaphoric gavel, I’d explode. Still, it shouldn’t be my job to teach you how to be kind to me.
It would do the world some good to be sentenced to feeling a bit more empathy. To set up their own privilege checkpoints, identifying their blind spots instead of waiting for someone to do it for them. To be reminded that—instead of explaining why the racist thing they said isn’t actually racist, how they didn’t mean for it to be racist, or how they can’t be racist because they always tip their Asian nail technician really well—they have the right to remain silent. Also, if one more person asks where I’m “really” from, I will do a citizen’s arrest on them.
Case #8: Current Me vs. 2013 Me Who Got Noticeably Bad Bangs
Like every woman in her late-twenties, I have dabbled in getting bangs. Here an excerpt from the actual court transcript from one case of particularly bad bangs.
JUDGE MIA: Let me start by asking three simple questions: Why? Why? And furthermore, whywhywhywhywhyWHY?!
2013 MIA: Aren’t you supposed to be impartial?
JUDGE MIA: I apologize, my bangs bias is showing. Current Ms. Mercado, present your argument.
CURRENT MIA: Your honor, she knew something was wrong the second the stylist left her hair parted to one side. He grabbed a little chunk from each side and just CUT STRAIGHT ACROSS.
JUDGE MIA: Let the record show the plaintiff turned her
fingers into “scissors” and did a snipping motion across the middle of her forehead.
2013 MIA: He said the cowlick would smooth out eventually.
CURRENT MIA: It wasn’t a cowlick. It was our natural part!
JUDGE MIA: ORDER! ORDER! The defendant will have her chance to talk in a moment. Please continue, Ms. Mercado.
CURRENT MIA: Thank you, your honor. The cowlick never went away. We tried hair spray, styling mousse, rewetting and blow-drying it. It was just a bad haircut.
JUDGE MIA: Does the defendant have anything to say for herself?
2013 MIA: I wanted a change.
CURRENT MIA: You could have just gotten a trim like a mentally stable person!
2013 MIA: [indistinguishable]
JUDGE MIA: You’ll need to speak up. I can barely take you seriously as it is with those bangs. Just remember you are under oath.
2013 MIA: Thank you, your honor. I said that I’d just rewatched 500 Days of Summer.
CURRENT MIA: BUT WE—
JUDGE MIA: ORDER! ORDER!
CURRENT MIA: Your honor, the evidence is relevant to this particular piece of the testimony.
JUDGE MIA: I’ll allow.
CURRENT MIA: Thank you, your honor. You’ll see, from this IMDB photo, that we do not have remotely the same face shape as Zooey Deschanel and, therefore, could not, under any circumstance, pull off those bangs.
JUDGE MIA: Does the defendant have any point of clarification?
2013 MIA: . . . No, your honor.
CURRENT MIA: Also, she knew he was botching it when he started cutting the hair straight across!
JUDGE MIA: Is this true?
2013 MIA: I mean, yeah. What he was doing didn’t seem right, but I was too embarrassed to say anything.
JUDGE MIA: That follows what character witnesses have said. I will ask the plaintiff whether she thinks she would do anything differently, were she to find herself in the same stylist’s chair.
CURRENT MIA: I would never do something like that.
JUDGE MIA: Interesting. It says here you have a record of not sending food back at a restaurant even when it’s not at all close to what you asked for? I also see that once you found a literal fly in your enchilada and you just . . . ate around it. Is that correct?
CURRENT MIA: [indistinguishable]
JUDGE MIA: I just asked that she [gestures to DEFENDANT] speak up. Do I need to ask you, too? Now, did you or did you not once eat around an enchilada that shared a plate with an entire dead bug?
CURRENT MIA: . . . Yeah, I did that.
JUDGE MIA: Okay, I’ve made my decision. 2013 Mia, you’ve put yourself through enough. As have you, Current Mia. Your punishment will be waiting for these terrible bangs to grow out. Court dismissed.
BAILIFF MIA: Your honor, you have another hearing immediately after this.
JUDGE MIA: We got bangs again, didn’t we?
Case #9: My Dog vs. Anyone Who Will Not Pet Her
As a self-designated judge, it is both my privilege and my responsibility to speak on behalf of those who cannot speak for themselves. My dog, however, is perfectly capable of speaking for herself.
Ava is convinced with all eight pounds of her being that wherever she goes, all the people in that space are solely there to meet her. And you know what? She’s right. She’s a perfectly stinky, stupidly soft, little fluff with a face so cute it should probably be illegal. That’s not even parental bias; most everyone who’s met Ava says she is adorable. Riley is historically not a dog person (another thing that should be illegal, but I digress), but he took one look at Ava and was like, “Oh, yeah. She’s perfect.” Ava is change-your-mind, steal-your-man, fuck-up-your-whole-life-but-you’ll-allow-it levels of cute.
Ava is constantly running for Dog Mayor of Ava Town, greeting any and all human constituents she crosses paths with. If Riley and I take Ava to a restaurant patio, a park, a drive-through, and any person she sees doesn’t acknowledge her, she barks at them. It’s not an aggressive “Don’t fuck with me” bark. It’s a sad, desperate “Please, fuck with me, I beg of you” bark. If Ava had her way, she’d sentence the human population to carry her from place to place, claiming squatters’ rights on any lap she lands on. I suppose it’s only fair retribution for humans inbreeding her kind so much.
Case #10: Me vs. Myself
It’s like, wow, okay, bitch. You think you know everything? You think you know everything? You think you know everything? Did you miss the whole bangs fiasco? Did you forget when you hid your poop underwear in a woodpile? Remember that time, moments ago, when you realized “one and the same” was not “one IN the same”?
Who the fuck are you?
But it’s also like, um, remember how you, on your own, changed your whole life around in one summer? Remember how you started taking care of your mental health? Remember how you got married and capably take care of a whole entire dog? Remember how you wrote this book?
Maybe in the mix of feeling strange and stupid, judging ourselves for feeling awkward and out of place, we learn to level out. Maybe we realize that feeling weird is just a standard part of being alive. Maybe, at some point, we all end up normal.
Acknowledgments
Thank you to my literary agent Monica Odom. This book would not have been possible without your guiding hand, your keen eye for creating a story, and your general badassery.
Thank you to my editorial team, Hilary Swanson and Aidan Mahony, who patiently combed through this book and helped craft each piece into something stupidly perfect and vice versa. You are the co-parenting throuple that book dreams are made of.
Thank you to Judith Riotto for her copyediting prowess and for catching the time I miscredited the year Britney Spears released “Lucky.” I never would have lived it down.
Thank you to the teams at HarperOne and HarperCollins for publishing this book even though I am not even a little bit famous and did make you put the word “fingerbang” in print.
Thank you to Emma Allen, Chris Monks, Fiona Taylor, Caitlin Kunkel, Brooke Preston, Carrie Wittmer, Erika W. Smith, and all the editors I’ve been lucky enough to work with. Your encouragement and guidance fed my gross little ego and in no small part helped make this book possible.
Thank you to Chase Castor for his master photography and for allowing me to live out my Pageant Mom Dreams in a photo shoot with my dog. Thank you, Kelly Castor, for allowing your beautiful artwork to get a little nasty on my book cover.
Thank you, Camden Hanzlick-Burton and Margaret Hanzlick-Burton, for reading an early version of this book and giving me FaceTime pep talks. You make my heart poop its pants in a good way. Thank you, Valerie Stark, for your expert editorial eye, your comedic sensibilities, and showering me with love and celebratory drinks. Thank you, Rachel Ignotofsky, for championing the things I do and reading what I write, the latter of which is truly the highest compliment. Thank you, Sami, for being cool with me airing our middle school dirty Dollz laundry. I have known you longer than I’ve known myself.
To my family, thank you and sorry for the part where I said “fingerbang.” Mom and Dad, thank you for always supporting the work I want to do, even when that work has been strange or confusing or didn’t come with a retirement plan. I love you.
To Zoey, Frankie, and Ana, thank you for just being. I am who I am because of each of you and getting to be your sister is my favorite thing. Labyu!!!
To Riley, something something clever callback to how I love you infinitely. Okay, love me.
About the Author
MIA MERCADO is a writer based in the Midwest. She’s originally from Milwaukee and probably pronounces “bag” wrong. Her work has been featured in The New Yorker, the New York Times, Washington Post’s The Lily, New York magazine’s The Cut, Bustle, McSweeney’s, and a bottle she threw in the Milwaukee River when she was nine. Mia lives with her dog, Ava, who can’t read this book but is perfect nonetheless.
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Illustrations here and here: Fafarumba | Shutterstock
Illustrations here, here, here, here, and here: mspoint | VectorStock
Illustration here: nikiteev_konstantin | Shutterstock
Versions of the following essays were previously published online: “White Friend Confessional” on McSweeney’s Internet Tendency; “I’m a Guy’s Girl” on NewYorker.com’s Daily Shouts; “Bath & Body Works Is the Suburban Nonsense I Crave” on BUST.com; “A Nice Piece of Satire You Can Take Home to Your Parents” on Belladonna Comedy, thebelladonnacomedy.com.
WEIRD BUT NORMAL. Copyright © 2020 by Mia Mercado. All rights reserved. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
Cover design © Kelly Castor
FIRST EDITION
Digital Edition MAY 2020 ISBN: 978-0-06-294284-5
Version 03262020
Print ISBN: 978-0-06-294280-7
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