Dear Rebecca Black,

When I was in third grade, Shalini Menon sat to my right. A sweet midget for a girl with buck teeth, she would walk into class every day with her hair doused in enough oil to tempt Iran into digging a pipeline through her head. To my left sat Tarannum Jalil. I don’t remember much about her, except thinking that if I smelled like that, my mother would put me in the pile that ‘does not go in the machine’.

We were healthy children, the three of us, which made our seat the sturdiest, non-wobbliest bench in all of III C. Which made things harder for me.

You see, I sat in the middle.

Fiercely pungent jasmine hanging onto bobbypins greased with enough coconut oil to make Kerala proud, alongside the visual treat of it all slurp and drip down onto Shalini’s ear, to my right.

To my left, decomposing humus dripping out of sweat glands as large as holes in a Chetan Bhagat plot, aiming at my general direction. That and a perpetual dry cough after which I’d see Jalil wiping her hands on her skirt from the corner of my eye.

Whom do I sit closer to?
On what side do I keep my bag?

Then, Black, I had to make a decision.
And decision making, I did.
I decided. I became a decider.
I had to make a choice. And I made a choice.
I chose… to make a decision.

(Gimme a hand here, Rebecca - you’re the one good at repetition.)


Thing is, Rebecca, I was once a kid, too. And kids let parents take whimsical decisions for them. Mine put me in a school where hygiene standards were excused every third bench or so. Yours paid a dumbfuck with a broadband connection and a YouTube account $2000 to make you whine about eating your cereal and bunking school so you could sit in a parked car in front of a green screen.

It’s not your fault. My mom told me that I looked beautiful in a tulip costume for a fancy dress parade. Your mom told you that you could sing. Moms. Liars. Sadistic pre-menopausal dingbats with too much time and TiVo. Though its ages since, I’m still called Worm in a Tomato in some circles. Take my word for it, they’ll be calling you a talentless hack for years to come.


So now you know. Don’t trust your parents. If they knew better, they’d ground you for driving around with other licence-less juvenile delinquents looking to score on a school day. Or for being 13 and capable of only listing the days of the week in the right order.

Heard of algebra? What’s (a + b)²?

No, Black. The answer’s not Pomegranate.


Take my advice. Don’t leave it to your parents this time with all the thinking you’re doing about your next number. Take a decision and don’t do that second song. I mean, you spent, what 5 minutes figuring if you should take the front or the back seat, right? Take some time to think about this, too. Take a break. Take away. Take 500 ml oestrogen. You’re making us all seem like the pathetic race we are, hating a 13 year old.

Bad decisions can fuck you up. I still have the acne scars on my right cheek to prove it.

Waiting till you're 18 so I can abuse the fucking crap out of you,

Rae.

(I haven't put in the link to Rebecca Black's 'Friday' because this is a letter to her, and I presume she's already seen it. Look for it on YouTube. But because I love you, here's a video of a monkey screwing a goat and its pretty much the same thing.)