BackwardsTeasing

Opal came home from school mostly happy, although annoyed that they'd told her she was a small child (when she was trying unsuccessfully to convince them she was sick). But she did have one complaint: "Everybody teased me about my lunch!" Now, she had school-provided lunch today; that's not a total guarantee of normality, because you get a choice of options in this lunch plan (yes, my kid can have sushi as part of her school lunch). So I asked what lunch she had. "Cheese pizza", she said mournfully. Cheese pizza? What can be wrong with cheese pizza? "They said it wasn't healthy! There's Other Stuff in the tomato sauce, D told me!" "Well, sure, everybody puts stuff in tomato sauce -- olive oil, onions, some oregano..." "No! He says his mother makes his tomato sauce out of JUST TOMATOES! Crushed up and cooked, of course."

Earlier this year she got teased for not having freckles. That of course sounds light-heartedly backwards to those of us who grew up with people who were teased for having freckles, until you think about it for a minute; they're telling her she's too dark-skinned. (In her class she's the only caucasian kid without freckles.) Fortunately that went out of fashion in a week or so. (Yes, I told her it wasn't OK; different people have different colored skin, some of them freckle and some of them don't, it's just how people are.)