Sheerah vs. Sheerah
 
When I was a child I used to spend a lot of my time at either my Aunt Velma's or my Aunt Cathy's.  At my Aunt Velma's I was treated like an adult and my aunt indirectly molded me into the person that I am today.  This was due to spending so much time with her and my Uncle Keith.  I miss those days.  Any other time I was away from the house I was at my Aunt Cathy's because that is where my two cousins lived:  Stacy and Allen.  Here I was just that a child.  This is where my imagination flowed and hours of playing ensued.  I had boat loads of fun when I was there.  Stacy and I would play Barbies for hours and hours on end.  When my Aunt would come home she would always yell at us for me playing Barbies with Stacy.  Like it had some weird affect on me.  I wasn't supposed to play with dolls.  Nonetheless, she would let us continue to play.  Secretly I think she knew as did my Aunt Velma of the boy who played with dolls.  It would upset me that playing with Stacy and her dolls was such a big deal.  I mean it is a toy.  Nothing more.  Regardless of if I had permission or not I would play with them anyway.  Oh but what memories I have of being there with Stacy, myself, and the bundles Barbies and accessories.  On the rare occassion that Stacy and I lent ourselves to play with Allen we would be most creative.  Creating haunted houses in the basement, making forts out of sofa cushions, sheets, and yardsticks, and above all we always pretended to be superheros.  Allen would sometimes be a G.I. Joe, pirate or Heman.  Yes, that is what he was most of all.  Heman.  Stacy would pretend to be a damsil in distress, a princess with the ability to alter reality or see the future, and above all characters to be she would pick Sheerah.  This is where the problem occurred.  You see I would play that hero's foe, an evil king, an imp or fairy (no really!!).  But above all I wanted to be Sheerah.  We would settle the disputes over who could play who and move on.  I would usually be told the same thing "You're not a girl so you can't be Sheerah."  With imagination still comes a touch of reality.  Then it came to the point of the last straw being broke.

When the Heman movie came out on video it just so happened that my Aunt Cathy was having a party so everyone was together and to keep us youngin's occupied we had the movie.  Stacy, Allen and I headed to the basement with blankets, pillows, snacks, and our action figures in hand.  We began watching the movie.  Allen was the first to say that he was Heman (which is totally a closted homosexual character), Stacy and I were the last to pick characters.  Stacy kept telling me she couldn't decide between Skeletor and Sheerah.  I knew I wanted to be Sheerah but didn't say anything at first.  When I finally spoke up it was followed by "No I'm Sheerah.  You have to be Skeletor."  At this point my blood began to boil at being told "no" again by Stacy and Allen.  We bickered back and forth for about two or three minutes and then began to physically fight.  Allen began to scream and laugh at us.  It was like to girls in a mud wrestling contest.  No holds bar.  I ripped out Stacy's hair.  She punched me in the nose.  I bit her.  She tried to put me in a headlock.  Regardless of what we did to each other it still didn't solve who could be who.  Our parents finally came in and seperated us.  They asked us why we were fighting.  I would not answer because I didn't want anyone to know it was over me wanting to play Sheerah.  For some reason I think Stacy knew how much it would hurt me if we told the truth so she said that "Paul wanted to be Skeletor and I told him he couldn't be and we started fighting."  Our parents made us apologize to each other and we laid back down together, Stacy and I,  with my hand around her we finished watching the movie.  I still think of this and always remember that I forgot to tell her "thank you."