SUGAR AND SPICE by Okie White

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While with a group of friends who meet for dinner once a month, I casually tossed onto the conversational table I wasn’t a nice person. (Don’t ask why. Let’s just say I’m prone to making absurb statements at absurd times.) There was a moment of silence while my fellow diners digested this piece of information along with the pansies and bachelor’s buttons and unidentifiable leaves of multitudinous varieties in their salads. The silence lasted longer than I knew it should if I hadn’t hit on a blatant truth about myself. Truthfully, I was amazed by their reaction – and mine. Did I expect them to quickly contradict me? Was I looking for some reassurance that I was, after all really nice – or that being myself didn’t matter? Nobody has ever mistaken me for Pollyanna. But what is "nice" after all? I started thinking about all the "nice" things my mother told me as a child. By my mother’s definition, being nice covers a lot of territory. · If you can’t say something nice about someone, don’t say anything. (Needless to say, I kept quiet a lot as a child.) · Don’t do that! It isn’t nice. (Which included everything from pulling my dress over my head to dropping a live grasshopper down someone’s shirt.) · Nice girls don’t stay out after midnight. (As I got older being nice became increasingly gender specific.) · Nice girls don’t wear lots of makeup. (I discovered when we moved out of Iowa, nice girls are rare in the South.) · Nice girls only wear white at their weddings. (I wanted ivory, not flaming red.) Being nice is mixed up with so many other concepts – morality, politeness, nuturing. But is that what "nice" really is? I’m not a nice person, I repeated. Now committed to my comment, I was curious to see how these "nice" ladies would respond. My friends thought about it again. From the looks on their faces I knew I’d crossed some invisible feminine line. Admitting to such an outrageous aberration of character was unthinkable. Well, sure you’re not nice-nice, the bookkeeper conceded. It isn’t all that healthy to be nice, the counselor-teacher ventured. You have to be true to your feelings. If you don’t feel like being nice then you shouldn’t try to be nice. You can always tell when someone is covering up -- being nice when they’re really bitchy, the computer programmer said. It made them so uncomfortable someone changed the subject to the weather. I ate a purple pansy and chewed with my mouth shut. Maybe I was a little disappointed I didn’t fit into the nice category. All the other myths about the differences between men and women may go by the wayside, but this one still remains. Girls are sugar and spice and everything nice. To admit the truth is to confess a shameful secret. But somewhere along the line I dropped the sugar out of the list of things I was obligated to do. I don’t make "nice" with people to make them have a better opinion of me. A few years of life under my belt convinced me everyone doesn’t have to like me. There isn’t anybody that everyone loves. About the only "nice" concept I’ve retained is not to say bad things about people behind their backs. If I have something bad to say, I say it to their face. And, of course, I don’t pull my dress over my head anymore or drop grasshoppers down people’s shirts. But obviously, all that is not enough to make me nice. As we walked out of the restaurant, the secretary pulled me aside and whispered in my ear, It’s not that you’re not nice, you know. You’re too honest. You say what everyone else is thinking…. But are too nice to say, I thought. Which was a nice way of saying I’m always pulling my foot out of my mouth. So be it. I’m not sugar and spice and everything nice. Sometimes I wish I were, but not enough to change. Let me be accused of honesty instead. At least I’ll never be impeached for perjury.