old habits die hard
My elementary school days are a blur. Somewhere between first and fourth grade my parents got divorced, I stopped believing I'd get my own planet when I died, and I'd cry so hard during class that I actually had a designated "sob area" appointed by my Physical Science teacher, Mrs. Bennett. The great thing about Plano, Texas is that instead of hamsters or gerbils for class pets you get a... cubby tub full of crawdad. The last time I remember having a breakdown in my third grade physical science class I remember Mrs. Bennett saying, "Cool off by the crawdads!"
The year before I started 5th grade my dad got a new wife. An awesome woman I adored who climbed out the car window and crawled back in through the sunroof at a stop light on our first double date. Double meaning my dad and her plus my sister and I in the back seat. She even tied my shoelaces to the front seat while I wasn't looking so I'd fall on my way out. And I did fall on my way out. I also fell in love.
We moved, I inherited a rad little brother, and started a fresh new year at a new school where no one knew I bawled my eyes out into the crawdad tank on a daily basis. All of the sudden I was the "new girl" and everyone wanted to know who I was, where I came from, and where I got my one piece floral jumped with pearl buttons (Mervyn's).
Just into the second week of school there was a spectacular announcement. We were going to take a field trip to a place called "Kid City" where we'd spend the day having "real jobs" and doing "adult things" like buying popcorn with the money we made being the fake city's resident garbage man. I wish I could remember how our jobs were appointed, but somehow the most popular girl got to be the D.J. at the Kid City radio station. Rigged. And everything was as real as it could be. My job and my experience at Kid City was as real as it could have been.
My classmates had jobs developing pictures at the local photo lab, handing out loans at the Kid City Bank, running for mayor, and I was the cashier at what we named the Hip Hop Snack Shop. I was in charge of designing the sign with crayons, manning the register, and making sure the popcorn didn't burn. I stared out the window past the miniature plastic park benches and astroturf through the window of the radio station daydreaming of what could have been. She must have been making millions over there. I had raked in maybe 5 "dollars" by the time my lunch break rolled around.
I did what any normal woman unhappy with her carreer would do during her lunch break. I went on a shopping binge in Kid City. I wrote checks for everything I could! I stumbled back into the Snack Shop with BINDERS, PENCILS, A STUFFED BASEBALL (???), AND HAIR...THINGS. My snack shop coworkers knew I wasn't making the kind of money one would need to provide for such luxurious items, so they ratted me out. My parents were conveniently chaperoning this field trip, so I got into lots of trouble immediately with them and the city all at once.
They made me take each item back to my classmates at each fake store and apologize through big city crawdad tubby tank tears, but luckily let me keep the polaroid purchased at the "photo lab". My "friend" Brittany and I posed side by side with a life size cardboard cut out of Roger Rabbit in between us.
***In later stories you'll learn that Brittany was not, in fact, my friend. You will learn that she and her friends forked my lawn, wrote S-L-U-T in bleach on my lawn, and threw eggs at every window on my house on several occasions.
My last punishment was to ask to see the Mayor and apologize for being the first and only one woman check bouncing tornado that hit Kid City. But the Mayor wasn't even a grown up. The Mayor of Kid City was Amanda Jones, the class "nerd".
Needless to say after that experience my 5th grade glory days were over. Ryan Leamy didn't let me look up his electric pink umbros while he was on the monkey bars any more, either.
The point of this story is that every time I overdraw my account by accident I am haunted by this memory. Why didn't I learn my lesson? Is it because they let me keep the polaroid? I signed up for overdraft protection, but what am I going to do about other 5th grade habits?
I'm still chasing boys at recess. Instead of running toward a person I'm either running toward them and they're running the same direction (away), or someone is running toward me and I'm running the opposite way.
"Do you really think they're going to stop, tell you they love you, and ask if you want to make pumpkin bread together?" -Kate Felder
This message brought to you by: The fact that I was listening to the new Jamie Liddell record so slow it sounded like he was dancing through jello, the "herbs of light" detox supplement I accidentally poured into my juice this morning, and the planetary energies e-mail I'm having sent to myself every morning.
Oops, I think I broke.