Stephlton and Kindergarten (1)

So...some of this may look oddly familiar. As well it should! I am repeating part of a post because it seems appropriate. Bite me, i'm delicious.

From the moment that I entered the public school system one warm, August morning in 1996, I knew that I was in trouble. We, the young minds to be meticulously clipped and shaped like the Bonsai tree, were herded into the enormous auditorium where a thundering echo welcomed us back for "another great year!" and began rattling off names and their respective classes. I could not make out what the speaker was saying. There seemed to be a half a million conversations going on at once. They all blended together into nothingness. Every so often The Man with the Mic would raise a hand and ask for silence to no avail. I stared at the ceiling and watched the orange, flickering lights above me. Clearly they were never meant to be on such a dim setting.

Suddenly everyone rose from their seats and began to walk away. I lagged behind and ended up being escorted to class by The Man with the Mic. From there I received an overly enthusiastic greeting from my teacher Ms. Medders (I heard Letters) as she walked me to my assigned seat at a large table. I was amazed that she already seemed to know me. I had never met her before as far as I could remember. How could she have known what name to write on the label in front of my chair?

I sat and observed the class. There were, I think, three of us at the table. One was the daughter of a friend of my mother's. She would wind up my best and only friend throughout the three years that I would spend at the school. The other was a boy with glasses. "What are you looking at?," he asked once he caught me staring. I smiled broadly. "Are you close sighted or away sighted?", I asked in my usual breathless, hurried manner. "Do they magnify? Have you ever started a fire with them? Like you can with a magnifying glass? That would be NEAT!" He did not answer. Instead, he turned around in his seat to face the opposite direction. I continued to look around the classroom. It was very brightly lit and colorful. Also, there was brown carpeting. I like carpet.

I looked over at the calender and wondered why there were no numbers. Only the days were listed. I found it odd that Sunday began the week. Shouldn't it begin with Monday?? Saturday and Sunday are the weekEND. The week ends with them. I looked at the walls. Clifford, Barney, other characters that I was not familiar with. I found it amusing that my name was already written on a laminated balloon labeled "February" beneath a sign that read "Birthdays!!". And the date was right! How did she know?!

I spent nap time explaining why there was a "Huge, ENORMOUS HOLE" in our ozone layer (I was paraphrasing something that I had seen on television) to the girl next to me until she fell asleep. Then I talked to myself until the teacher allowed me to get up and play a computer game which may have been Pajama Sam.

During P.E., I walked around in a daze staring at the trees, singing songs filled with nonsensical lyrics, and playing with a broken lighter that I grabbed through the fence. I mostly ignored the other students. Entertained myself until P.E. ended.

A boy sitting at the next table made noises with his mouth and tongue. Spitting. This bothered me for two reasons. 1) I have never been big on bodily fluids and 2) the noise he was making made my tongue feel like I was the one making the sound. He sat and coloured happily whist spraying his paper with saliva. Meanwhile I writhed in my seat, clutched my face, and tried to concentrate on anything else. The vibration was painful. My tongue felt too big for my mouth. I contemplated biting it off. I was going to choke on it soon...

He stopped and I felt my shoulders and back slowly relax. I turned my attention back to my own paper. Outlined it meticulously before I coloured it in. My hand touched a "naked" crayon, twitched, and dropped it while my mouth exploded in white agony. Something about the feeling of crayons without the paper covering (and chalk, and cotton balls, and the insides of certain sinks/bath tubs) makes my teeth hurt. I slump over in my seat. Chew on my hands for a while. Bite an arm until the pain subsides.

"What are you DOING?", demanded the boy next to me. The one with no interest in discussing his vision. "Nothing." He stared at me for a moment and said "You're weird. Don't sit next to me."