The Origins of Great Big Girl

Here’s the secret:

I’m actually not always myself.

Whenever I got angry as a teenager, I’d close my eyes, and I could actually see an image of myself or whatever shooting straight out of my body and into the air like a missile, and once it reached its pinnacle, it would explode, but not into a million little sparks of color. Instead, it would explode into a vast, miles-wide version of me. And then, high highhigh in the air, tall as the sky and wide as the whole county, I’d bellow in a voice that vibrated the earth and shook the squirrels right out of the trees:

I. AM. SSSOOOOOOOOO AAAAAAANNNGGRRRRRRYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!!!!!!!!

And I could see the tiny little people on the ground, their faces tipped up to the sky, and I could see the understanding in their eyes: Damn, that big girl is pissed off.

It was really confusing for me as a teen because I saw that un-bottled-genie version of me every time I got angry, or pissed, or righteously indignant. Every time I felt wronged or saw someone else being wronged. There she was, bursting from my body, trumpeting the truth that my soft, human body couldn’t seem to manage. It wasn’t until I was a little bit older that I found out who she was—that she was the other me, the superhero me. That she was:

Great Big Girl: Feminine Avenger!

Great Big Girl: Pink-Collar Hero!

Now, I’m basically a good-natured girl. I’m reasonable, logical; I like to have a laugh. I like to think I handle most situations with effective, if somewhat unusual, methods and a goofy, bumbling charm. But then there are Those Times—you know, those times when you find yourself in the middle of one of those absolutely ridiculous, This-Is-Such-Crap-That-It-Must-Actually-Be-A-Movie-And-Not-My-Life situations. Those times that are specifically engineered to try to get a girl down. And as much as I hate to admit it, sometimes The Man gets me down—particularly when he has his big black boot on my pink-collared neck. That’s when I feel the transformation.

Great Big Girl: Feminine Avenger! First began her work in A Town Near You, when she used to roam the streets with her do-gooder cohorts in the Genius Patrol—most notably her superfriends known as The Love Handle and Little Sister: Champion of the Underdog!. They stayed out late and fought injustice, all while drinking cocktails and bantering wittily (and drinking more cocktails) in their fiercely accessorized costumes. At the time, nobody knew that Great Big Girl was also a Pink-Collar Hero, since I—Lulu O’Brien—was a mild-mannered graduate student and teaching assistant then, rather than a mild-mannered secretary. And as such, people assumed I had origins in the middle-class, rather than the truth—that I was the big pink baby of a blue-collar family. So instead, Great Big Girl was simply a Feminine Avenger. She fought for the ladies who were wronged in love or bullied by bosses or who, for one reason or another, simply needed a girl to get her back. She became notorious for her favored Shove-and-Run technique, in which she would locate the offender in a public setting, push him down, and then disappear, leaving said offender to be ridiculed by passers-by for having been pushed down by a big girl.

But Great Big Girl has grown up. She has honed her skills. In addition to a Pink-Collar Hero, she has officially become a Force To Be Reckoned With. Here's why:

Great Big Girl shoots Irresistible Persuasion Beams out of her magical push-up bra!

She hypnotizes her target with the swaying of her hips!

She scores all the secrets with her SuperHuman Eavesdropping!

She lulls aggressive scalawags to sleep with her Soothing Telephone Voice!

She neutralizes her enemies with her Surprisingly Disarming Smile!

And here’s what’s what:

Great Big Girl does not get flustered or upset. Great Big Girl does not get bullied. And Great Big Girl does not fall for your tricks.

Instead, Great Big Girl says, “Hey hey, slow down, big fella. Where’s the fire?”

She says, “Hey Chuckles--quit riding my jock. Can’t you see I’m working here?”

Listen, Great Big Girl’s not going to take any of your guff, ya see? So why don’t you just turn around and take the ShoeLeather Express right out a here, Buster.

In short, Great Big Girl has the skills to Get By.

And girls, she’s got your back.