I’m not as nice as I look. Granted, I like my milk iced every now and then and I’m really good at carrying on polite conversations, but I’m that girl who flicks off grandmas on the interstate because they’re making her late to work, and that’s happened at least three times already in the past week.

I’m the kind of girl that, come mid-November, starts to ditch out on all of her friends because there are better things to do when it snows out; like say, lay on your bed not wearing pants – but that’s neither here nor there.

I’m easily irritable as well as a slightly obnoxious person by nature and, in the right circumstances, those traits have gotten me into a lot of trouble.

I outdid myself at a family gathering this summer. My nuclear family is something of a phenomenon in my group of friends: My mother, although the most normal appearing one of us, has been known to do monologues detailing her life as a gay man and my father is alternately dropping the F-bomb to the computer repair guy in India or prank-calling my boyfriend using the Jack Black sound board on Ebaum’s world. While we all have our weird, soft sides, my brother is the one I’ve secretly voted “Most-Likely-To-Cry-At-A-Chick-Flick-On-The-First-Date” and, therefore, is the one whom I exploit the most. While the rest of my family reminiscing at dinner over his attempts at finally cultivating a hefty patch of armpit hair (he’s 17) is enough to scar him for life, I’m sure, I’m the Mao of his China, making him wear negligees for funny pictures just because I say so.

While some of you are surely doing one of two things: asking yourself what the hell I’m doing on the Opinion’s page OR asking yourself what kind of daughter would air all of her family’s dirty laundry, the answer to the latter is: a mean one. As for those who want an answer for the former, you’re going to have to talk to my editor about that – although I did warn her.

Regardless, that was all just an introduction so that all the readers who haven’t met me in person will better understand the story I’m about to tell.

My Uncle Bob and his second wife, Chris, both love guns and food, and so therefore it made sense to have the family reunion at his house this year. We gathered, ate corn on the cob and, just like any hardcore group of yokels, we watched my newly enlisted cousin chew wads of tobacco and drink underage. It was the best of times; it was the worst of times.

My life was going perfectly up until the moment that I met Shannon, someone who was a step, first cousin once removed; someone who shouldn’t have even been there. She was 6-years-old and apparently her parents had been recently divorced. If it had been any other child, I’m sure I would have pulled her on my lap and sung Yanni songs soothingly into her ear until my vocal cords gave out, but because she was one of those high-strung monster half-breeds who feeds off of annoying their elders, something much more serious had to be done.

To make a long story short: I bit her. I know I’m 20, but let’s be honest: She started it and, when the fists are swinging, I’m not one to walk away from a fight. Also, my pride was at stake. So after several pokes to my eyeballs and toothy tusk marks in my arm, I retaliated with a lusty bite. Oh, it was glorious! It was then that my younger cousin had to separate us and hold Shannon’s arm. Though the fight was but five minutes, it has taught me a lesson that will stick with me – and, I’m sure, with Shannon – through eternity: that Kat Hargreaves is a mean girl.

Kat Hargreaves accepts comments at: [email protected]