Well , they say it's your birthday...

I got my first pair of glasses when I was in the third grade. Being a shy and easily embarrassed third grader, I kept the fact of my imminent bespectacledness a secret from my classmates until the morning I showed up to school wearing the set of frames that, after two hours of careful inspection, I concluded would provide the least ammunition for mockery and derision (incorrectly, as it turns out -- but that's a different, much more painful story).

It was the middle of third period by the time my glasses were ready, and when my mom dropped me off at school I put them on, summoned all the courage a shy, easily embarrassed third grader could muster, and walked into class. My feeling of maybe-it-won't-be-so-badness deflated the moment I set foot through the door as 20 heads whipped around to better gawk at the bulky gray plastic frames on my face. I could hear the shocked giggles percolating in my classmates' throats as I hurried to my desk, and I hadn't even put my backpack down when someone shouted out, "Hey, four eyes!"

Here's the thing. It was my teacher, Ms. Holan.

The first person to make fun of my glasses was my third grade teacher.

The day progressed as one might expect, with a seemingly endless parade of teacher-sanctioned jeers and name-calling. I spent most of the day with my head on my desk, desperately fighting back tears in an attempt to salvage some small scrap of what, at 9, I was beginning to recognize as dignity. Things finally began to wind down by the time school ended (though it erupted into glorious, blinding new life the next day when Alonzo Davis screamed into the side of my face that the glasses had a picture of Brainy Smurf at the temple -- but again, that's another matter entirely). The moment the bell rang I grabbed my backpack and bolted for the door before anyone else was even out of their seat. Ms. Holan barked at me to sit back down. Then, after releasing the rest of the class, she called me over to her desk, folded her arms, and told me I had a bad attitude.

I say all of this to say thus: that even at the tender age of 9, I knew a goddamn setup when I saw one.

Which brings us to yesterday.

Yesterday was my birthday, and instead of spending a rainy Wednesday dicking around my sister's apartment, I got up early and went out to the set in Brooklyn. The day went by smoothly. I discretely mentioned to a couple of people that it was my birthday and let the buzz build on its own. Wrap around 8pm, out comes the cake and a mercifully unharmonized rendition of Happy Birthday. Everyone is collectively impressed that I came in for an unpaid internship on my birthday. I shrug. Yeah, well, y'know.

The lovefest came to an end, and on my way out I was stopped by the associate producer. Let's call her Rosemary. Rosemary, for reasons that aren't entirely clear, has become increasingly antagonistic toward me since my arrival, to the point where she doesn't so much as look at me when I say hello. It's all very weird and uncomfortable -- all the more because I am absolutely dumbfounded as to where it comes from. Even so, it all felt very familiar as she pulled me aside, folded her arms, and told me I have a bad attitude. C'mon, you know this one. All together now.

I could only gape in dumbfounded wonder as she proceeded to accuse me of being, among other things, lazy, uncooperative, unenthusiastic, and disrespectful, the examples of which were baseless and vague, phrased thusly:

"Now, I'm not going to go into specifics here, but one time I asked you to do X, and you were all like, psssh."
"I'm not going to sit here and run through a list, but when I asked you to do Y you, like, hesitated for a second."
"One thing I won't do is dig up a bunch old stuff, because we're both adults. But I told you to pick up Z and, like, I got the feeling you thought it was beneath you."

I can't stress enough that all of this is utter nonsense. I have never balked at doing any work, I have never said so much as a cross word, and I have sure as shit never been all like psssh. But I stood there, growing quietly angrier and more confused as she listed each supposed wrong and perceived slight, and on my birthday no less. By the time she admonished me to think carefully about whether or not I want to continue to work on the show, I could do little more than assure her through clenched teeth that, in fact, I do.

And so I rode the slow train home, fists jammed sullenly into pockets, as the hot flower of righteous indignation bloomed inside my chest. By the time I got home I'd come to three important realizations. The first is that, as the low man on the film industry's totem pole, I am subject to Rosemary's every arbitrary whim and insecurity-fueled power trip. The second is that, if I want to continue to work on this or any other show, I have no choice but to stand there and take it. And the third?

This girl totally wants to fuck me.