The way my mother tells this story, it’s with a smirk in the right corner of her mouth, her eyes dancing all the way to the punch line. I have vague, fuzzy memories that are probably more due to imaginative reconstruction and not any actual miracle recoveries. But it’s a good story, whether or not the memory is my own.

When I was little, my mother would take me to the Toy’s R Us on the corner of Geary and Masonic. I’d browse the aisles happily with her following behind, occasionally playing with me, but mostly letting me explore. I adored everything – the plastic perfection that was Barbie, the over-inflated and impossibly light kickballs, the giant and clunky GameBoys (gray and monochrome Marios leaping over turtles and dodging fireballs) and what seemed to be miles of Legos. In the stuffed animal section, my mom and I would find puppets and act out whatever play had my interest at the time. I could, and did, spend hours in the little yellow book corner, haphazardly erected towards the center of the store.

But the best, the very coolest part of the trip to the toy store, was always the car aisle.

Placed close to store center, next to the bikes, the car aisle featured two shelves that had been stuffed bumper to bumper with vehicles that had been scaled down to fit the average 8-year-old boy. Some you could move by pedaling, some had holes in the floor Flinstones-style, but the newest (and coolest) ran on an arsenal of batteries and made you feel like you were actually driving, at daring speeds of up to 5 mph.

On one such trip to the Toy’s R Us during a summer weekend, I had just settled into an army Jeep (and was merrily pretending that I was a jungle explorer, hell-bent on rescuing priceless artifacts from vine- and snake-covered tombs, having recently been exposed to Raiders of the Lost Ark), when a larger boy came strolling up to the passenger seat.

“Get outta the Jeep, little kid.”

Looking back on it, I’m sure that I was shocked. Although I reveled in my tomboy status at school –wearing my stained and frayed Giants hat religiously and obsessively picking at the calluses that pitted my palms – I was taught to use my words, with the occasional fist-shake thrown in for good measure. But of course, witty retorts (and words over 10 letters) were not exactly solid in my vocabulary yet, so the best I could do was “Huh?”

“I said, ‘get outta the Jeep,’ little girl.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s a boy’s car. You can play with that one,” he sneered, pointing to the one, the only, the pink Barbie convertible. Even the wheels were a smooth, reserved plastic. No ugly lumps to generate traction. The stickered dashboard was smothered by flowers. Worst yet, I couldn’t for the life of me figure out how it moved. Obviously, it was a posing piece, a stationary pink purgatory that only allowed for freedom of movement when someone else pushed you.

Considering this was the first sexist experience of my short, impressionable life, I have to admit I handled it pretty well.

The bully, noticing my reluctance to move, decided to speed the process along. He grabbed my arm, trying to haul me out of the car.

I punched him good and hard in the face. He ran, crying, to his mother.  

The part of this story that my mom loves the best, is how we were then escorted to the manager’s office. Told politely, but firmly, that we were not to be allowed back into the store, due to my uncontrollable behavior. “Indefinitely” was the term.

On our way home, she bought me an orange sherbet in a sugar cone from the ice cream parlor on 18th, stroking my wild braids in a way that I knew meant “I love you.”

Now, years after I have traded in my blistered palms for silver rings, and my shorn locks fall mockingly out of braids, I still catch myself unconsciously sneering at blushing rose blooms, cotton candy, bubble gum, and anything (everything) that is painted the same aggressively upbeat magenta as Barbie’s pink convertible.