Visit Happy Valley, where smiles are plastered and everything is perfect. (Writing exercise with a subculture not typically known: Provo, UT)
I came home from my night at the ballroom dance club on campus to find the “bull’s head” on my bed again. Apparently, tossing it into the trash can wasn’t message enough, and my roommate Sarenity had retrieved it and hung it back in its place on the living room wall, ready to be dealt to the next one of us who committed a sin, usually me. It was just the head of a piñata, a remnant from the going away party for the roommate I replaced who was now serving a proselyting mission in Argentina.
I could not live up to the standards of my apartment predecessor, even though I’d been previously known as the goody-two-shoes Molly Mormon in my youth group back home. I’d resented the title I couldn’t shake, now so ironic that I was the bad girl here. The Mormon world was as different as one who’d grown up Jewish, but I’d been living in what Utahn’s called “the mission field,” anything outside our Zion state. Now I was in Provo, Utah, dubbed “Happy Valley” where everything felt oddly like the black and white scenes in the movie Pleasantville.
I wasn’t sure what I’d done this time. I’d already informed my roommates that I wasn’t going to be home early enough for Apartment Prayer time, so I couldn’t be guilty of dodging that spiritual duty. I don’t know why Aunistee never got the bull’s head when she worked at Starbucks to earn money for her mission, but I suppose her love for the smell of coffee was seen as valiantly withstanding the temptation of partaking of the forbidden substance. Or why Angyl never got in trouble for falling asleep on the couch with Aunistee’s older brother past the 11pm curfew when boys had to be out of girl’s apartments. Too bad it wasn’t a sin to shirk chores like taking out the trash or keeping your room clean. Or maybe I could give them demerits for past transgressions they could not hide, like Sarenity’s tattoo on her ankle or the second ear piercing she hadn’t graced since the prophet prohibited more than one piercing.
I hadn’t turned on the light because I didn’t want to wake my bunk mate, but the light from the hallway fell on my bed, its beam landing squarely on the bull’s head. I was so indignant, I had initially missed that my new dress was laid out on my bed next too it. A sticky note was attached to it with the all too familiar phrase “modest is hottest” written on it. I crumpled it up, aware that even if BYU dress standards required shoulders to be covered, it didn’t mean I couldn’t wear it to an off campus swing dance. It was too cute to pass up on the thrift store rack, even though I knew the hem line was an inch too short too. I refused to be shamed and put the bull’s head under my bed, resolute to throw it in the dumpster in the morning so it would never be resurrected again.
I hung my new dress back up in my closet, next to the sweater vests I was embarrassed I’d bought to fit in once I arrived. Everyone was cookie cutter, the girls with bump-its to raise their hair and teased it to make it as big as the 80’s, wearing floral skirts and vests that didn’t match. I was relieved that my own lack of style was camouflaged, but I knew enough about fashion to know we were in a time-warp bubble from 20 years ago where half the population looked like they’d been home schooled.
I closed the closet door, bashing my toe, and I let out a “Fetch!” I put my hand to my mouth. Oh my heck, I’m cussing like them!
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