Dime Store Fiction

I remember, when I was about thirteen, reading a romance novel wherein the young heroine was described as gamine. I wasn’t sure what it was, but it sounded like something that I wanted to be. Of course, I never grew up to be gamine. I grew up to be an odd collection of all the features of the tall people in my family, only without the tallness. I am just shy of 5’3” but I have never thought of myself as short.

I was wondering out loud the other day if that was genetic, if my odd perception of things might be caused by some rogue gene in my head that still believed I was six feet tall. My very dear friend just looked at me and said, “I don’t know, shrimp; but you sure have the obnoxious gene in spades.”

Heh! Oh, well. I guess obnoxious shrimp is about as close to gamine as I’ve come yet!