one of those girls.

Laura is one of those girls. There are a bunch of ways to describe her, all of them beginning with "She's one of those girls who..." and then the other person immediately goes, "Oh yeah, I know someone like that."

Laura is one of those girls whom everybody likes.
Laura is one of those girls who looks good in every picture that was ever taken of her.
Laura is one of those girls who was popular in high school while remaining down-to-earth and normal.

See? I was right. You know that girl.

But: Laura is one of those girls that has embarrassing stuff happen to her all the time. You know that girl, too. Laura's life is the stuff that high school sitcoms are made of. She says the ditziest stuff in front of professors. She trips and falls in front of the entire student body. She makes silly faces and then realizes that guy over there is watching. I've known Laura since we were babies, and so I've seen public humiliation at its finest. As a result, she is very good at laughing at herself. I would like to be so good at it, too, but without having to go through what she has gone through. Her ability to bounce back from embarrassment is just another thing that makes up her very Laura-ness.

I have a favorite Laura story. It is also my favorite embarrassment story, my favorite high school angst story, my favorite story involving black lights and white gloves.

I'm not sure if you've ever seen a black-lit performance of hand waving to music, but it's not that cool. Basically, you have a bunch of people dressed all in black except for white gloves. Then they stand in the dark while black lights shine on them. They do some sort of synchronized routine to the music, the effect being that you can only see their glowing hands. I imagine that the idea could be really cool, but not when it's carried out by a bunch of underehearsed kids to a bad song. Laura was a part of a group of students that was doing such a performance in front of the entire senior class as a part of a variety show. We were sophomores at the time, but I was in the audience because I was a part of a different act that had already performed. She didn't have a black shirt to wear, so she borrowed a cheap, thin one from the drama department.

The lights were dimmed, the performance began. We were all bored and distracted, until we started to notice something in particular about one of those figures in black, namely the one that has embarrassing things happen to her all the time. You see, that thin black shirt might hide you in normal lighting, but it was unable to overcome the powerful combination of a black light and a clean, white bra. So yes, there were a dozen pairs of hands waving around, and one brightly illuminated bra in the middle of the group. I confess it: I was laughing. But so was everybody else, and I at least had the grace to feel guilty for laughing.

After the act was over, I went backstage to check on the unintentional exhibitionist. She was crying in the bathroom, but she came out looking defeated after I knocked softly. The variety show still had several more acts to go, but I suggested we skip out and go get some lunch in the cafeteria. Which we did, and I swear, by the end of our lunch period, Laura was already starting to giggle over the whole thing, telling and retelling how she looked down mid-performance and saw the bright thing that was her chest and how it was all she could do not to run backstage before it was over. And then it was okay for me to laugh about it, not that I could have helped it anyway.

I asked permission from Laura to write this story so that the whole wide world could find out about her and her freakish glowing undergarments. I asked permission because it's a pretty embarrassing story, but I had it all written out all ready to post before I asked, because I felt confident that Laura would laugh and give me the go-ahead. She's just one of those girls.