Ok, hold on to your seats...

You’re going to be upset for what I’m about to tell you. Basically all this time I've been frontin. I know, I know… I've been lying to you all this whole time. It has to deal with something that very little people know about me. I actually have a secret life that no one knows about…and it’s about time I let the world know…... So basically I’m a hoodrat in real life. I know it sounds ridiculous but I’m for real! Sidenote: I’ll be mad if you already suspected this. I’m serious. I’ll be legitimately upset. It’s like someone has been waiting for the appropriate time to come out the closet, scared of the reaction they’ll receive, and when they finally do everyone’s like...”ummm…yea…we already knew. For years now actually…” How emotional would that be? (I know that was a drastic and hopefully not offensive example but that’s how I pictured it being.) Anyway yea I’m a hoodrat and I’m finally past the point of being too proud to admit it. But now that I’m done with college I think it’s the appropriate time for me to be on my “I don’t give a damn” pedestal when it comes to the views of my peers and basically the views of greater America. And because of that sentiment I feel like it’s time for me to embrace the part of me which I’m not so fond of; my hoodrat ways.

I’m not one for labels, so I had to look up the definition of “hoodrat” before I claimed it. Of course Webster led me nowhere so I had to go to the good ol’ trusty Urban Dictionary. They never fail me over there. So when I looked up the definition it said “A person who partakes in scandalous activity in order to achieve a goal or bad image. Some of the activities may be classified as illegal.” I must admit….THAT SOUNDS ABOUT RIGHT

I wouldn’t have even realized that I was one until my friend, Nick, put me on blast about my life. We had a full out debate about how the Maisheda the world sees is just a mask for who I really am/want to be. Of course I tried to use the argument that I was really a shy, motherly type of individual but he blew up my spot, real quick. REAL quick. Obviously when I thought Nick was the only guy I could tell my incriminating stories to without having them brought back up as arsenal against me, I was clearly wrong. He actually had a list of almost everything that he considered to be “hood”. And the list was pretty long…

The List of Hoodrat Moments in Maisheda’s Life:

*Carrying a constantly full purple-snake skin flask in my bra for the better majority of my junior year.

*Fighting a girl in front of Wal-Mart…twice.

* Learning the lyrics to any Nicki Minaj Song during a Directors meeting at work.

*Trying to get Marion Barry’s (the old Mayor of DC), God Daughter to hook me up with his supplier.

*Putting together a legitimate crew to run through Oakdale St.

*Being arrested on U Street, but not telling ANYONE.

*Stealing the liquor out of the refrigerator while everyone was running out the house when the cops busted the house party.

*Trying to sell weed to white folk that I found on the back of a tractor during a hay-ride.

*Trying to convince the world that crochet braids are back in style.

*Getting crochet braids to prove they are back in style.

*Jamming 8 drunken people in my compact car to get food from across town only to make a circle back to my house because we were being followed by a cop.

*Asking my Boss for my next paycheck to be in $100 bills so I could cut up one of the bills up for future nail art.

*getting picked up when I was hitch-hiking with my cousins.

*Being pulled over and surrounded by 4 cop cars at 3am on Capitol Hill.

*Taking shots in the middle of a “Dry Campus” in the middle of the afternoon…from bottles stowed away in my purse.

*Attempting to sell my friends virginity for a box of Krispy Kremes (you would have too if the “HOT” sign was on!)

*Yelling at everyone in a club in London that “I pull niggas….and bitches”

*Dropping everything to drive to a gay club to help my homie fight his one-night-stands’, ex-boyfriend.

* Running around DC trying to find someone selling the “Eat it Raw” and “Lick Me All Over” scented body oils

*Putting an official hit out for The Miami taxi driver, Maria Rodriguez, for stealing my cell phone.

*Taking 19 shots of Burnett’s Vodka in a row….for a drinking game where the prize was monopoly money.

*Threatening to cut someone…at least 4 times a week.

*Getting a guy to buy you a drink at the bar and then sneaking yourself as well as the free drink out of the bar and going to another one.

*Currently having a secret boyfriend that I’ve agreed not to tell anyone about because we don’t want to hear anyone’s mouth.

I’m happy to say that most of that was when I was just getting into college. I was still very childish then. But I can’t lie and say that a good amount of the list has been fairly recent. But I promise I’m getting better. Half of the stuff is illegal and the other half is just off the chart crazy. I know it’s not classy. And I honestly don’t know why I find enjoyment in hoodrat behavior. I guess you can call me Latarian Milton. "I want to do it cause it's fun. It's fun to do bad things...I wanna do hoodrat stuff with my friends!"