Let me tell you of my nemesis
100 Things: My Nemesis
I won't say every kid has a nemesis, nor will I say every adult has one. Some people are lucky. I'm hoping lots of people are lucky. Sadly, I was not one of those people as a kid. Nope. I'm still not sure how I ended up with a nemesis, nor am I entirely sure how she ended up being worse than the kid who stepped on my toes til they bled, or the girl who pinched me so much that I was bruised for the entire school year, but she was, ultimately disproving that whole sticks and stones thing for me.
Rachael (I believe she spelled her name this way and if not, we'll spell it this way because it irks the other Rachel I know and I wouldn't want them to share anything more than they already do) was kind of the anti-me. In elementary school we both tested into SAIL (gifted and talented program) at the same time after two years of not doing quite well enough on the entrance tests. Only in my case I earned the spot and her daddy called the school district and harassed them til they said whatever difference between "yay/nay" wasn't enough to keep her out again. Or, y'know, to shut them up. Whichever!
She wasn't my favorite person before that as she was kind of a killjoy. You know those people you want to smack instinctively, though it takes you awhile to figure out why? She was like that for me. Luckily I didn't have a ton of classes with her, ever, aside from SAIL once we both ended up there. We could avoid each other the rest of the time and I was fine.
Fast forward to middle school where the rules on everything changed. (I failed to get this memo and thus spent the next three years prepping myself for a miserable life in high school by being pretty miserable in middle school.) Sixth grade wasn't a big thing with her because again, only one class with her.
But oh, OH how she made the most of that one class. Come sixth grade, all the SAIL kids had to do this thing called O.M. and this involved you gathering 5-7 of your friends and picking one of five categories and then fulfilling the project requirements for that category.
This seemed to be likely to involve having to, I dunno, actually be seen by other people or talk in front of them or god knows what else, and I nearly panicked myself into oblivion. But then my oldest school friend M. reassured me that we could totally be on the same team and it would be awesome and all we had to do was sign up for the same category. So... despite being rather meh on whatever category she chose, I did because the idea of having to fend for myself completely alone was just not an option.
You have some idea of where this is going, don't you?
I've blocked a lot of this out and while I could ask Mums, I don't want to re-open that can of worms at the moment. So this part is a bit unclear and I apologize. After you signed up for a category, you then formed a team and signed up as that team on the door of the 7th & 8th grade teacher's classroom. I was the seventh person on a team but the job was done and I could breathe easy again.
Until I wasn't. Until Heather something-or-other who rode my bus was babbling about her team and it was my team only it wasn't my team anymore. Someone had erased my name so Heather could add her name. I freaked out because M and I had signed up with enough time for all the other teams to have formed in the meantime. I had no team. NO. TEAM. You couldn't get out of this, btw. You had to do OM.
Mums called and complained about how it wasn't fair that I should be penalized for someone else erasing my name and the school basically said "tough shit, find a new team." I found out pretty quickly what actually happened.
Heather was ~new~ and despite the fact that sixth grade was nothing but a parade of new, she was one of those girls you instantly know will be popular. Possibly Popular with capital letters. I was not. Rachael wanted to be on a team with Heather. So... she called up a meeting of the rest of team 2 or whatever it was, and said that my mother would take over the whole project and it would just be this horrible experience and g'ah, they should just avoid the whole thing by having Heather instead. I think M either missed this meeting too, or she thought they were all going to ignore Rachael. Or hell, maybe I got stabbed in the back but I don't think it was that one. M never had the patience for super drawn out drama, nor did she have the mind for it. Anyway, Heather was in and I was out.
Do you know what they do to kids who don't have a team and can't find one? That's right. Your teacher has to go around to each group that hasn't filled their quota and ask them if they'd like you to be part of their team. Technically you're supposed to do this, but there's just not enough humiliation involved in that.
So... I got paraded to the teams with the most sixth graders and offered up and surprise, surprise, Rachael's lie had made the rounds so just about everyone said no. Oh, hey, what's that, sixth grade me? You want to walk around the school library being shunned by everyone in your grade while trying super hard not to cry? Oh, you don't? Too bad.
I'm not even sure if it was worse that my teacher was incredibly nice but didn't seem to realize why no one was jumping at the chance to work with the fat kid who didn't wear jeans (it became a thing later on) and whose mother was apparently going to suck the fun out of everything. Also, probably red faced and on the verge of tears. Seriously, why did no one jump at this golden opportunity?
Eventually I think I got paraded by a team with a seventh grader (because she'd been through something similar a week prior when I thought I still had a team) and I think the combo of them having already accepted someone else and my teacher was getting fed up with a bunch of jerks in the sixth grade meant I was eventually allowed to join a group most begrudgingly.
I tried to make the best of it, but it was incredibly awkward every time Team 2 had a meeting at Heather's house so they'd all ride the bus and I'm sitting there like "oh, hey you backstabbers, I hope you die in a ditch. But not because the bus swerves off course because then I might be stuck with you even longer."
The plus side was that I made friends with that seventh grader since we were the two no one actually wanted on the team. :P Seriously, this was the best thing about this whole story. I just wish we'd managed to stay friends longer, but there's a huge gulf between 8th grade and high school so once it became clear I wasn't likely to go to her high school, our friendship sort of died out. While it lasted, though, it almost made up for the humiliation of being rejected so many times in such a very short period of time.
The next year I ended up... on a team with Rachael. And we made it past the regional and state devisions so we ended up at the big country-wide thing and guess who I had to share a room with?
Rachael. Who proceeded to spend the entire trip borrowing money from me. Money she never paid back. And no, we did not become friends after our stint as roommates. I ended up getting voted out of the spontaneous competition and since I wasn't in the other portion of the competition it was a lot like being told "you suck, get lost." I'm also pretty sure that it disqualified us, but no one would listen when I pointed that out.
The following year Rachael's father basically took over the group and we stalled out at regional or possibly state. I dunno. I did learn that her little sister was awesome and if I were a fictional version of me, I'd come to appreciate why Rachael was such a bitch (because everyone fawned over little sister) and that she took it out on the people around her. Instead I just laughed to myself every time I thought about it.
On the plus side, there are few people who are as good at connecting seemingly random words. The irony at becoming good at it as soon as I no longer needed to be is not lost on me.
Come high school, I'm not sure how much was just my awkwardness finally reaching a point that one might consider paranoia and how much was a helping hand from the nemesis.
Nowadays I don't think about her often, but when I do I wish her into a ditch. Maybe not dead, as it's entirely possible she has children now.
^Not as awesome as that. Sadly.
I won't say every kid has a nemesis, nor will I say every adult has one. Some people are lucky. I'm hoping lots of people are lucky. Sadly, I was not one of those people as a kid. Nope. I'm still not sure how I ended up with a nemesis, nor am I entirely sure how she ended up being worse than the kid who stepped on my toes til they bled, or the girl who pinched me so much that I was bruised for the entire school year, but she was, ultimately disproving that whole sticks and stones thing for me.
Rachael (I believe she spelled her name this way and if not, we'll spell it this way because it irks the other Rachel I know and I wouldn't want them to share anything more than they already do) was kind of the anti-me. In elementary school we both tested into SAIL (gifted and talented program) at the same time after two years of not doing quite well enough on the entrance tests. Only in my case I earned the spot and her daddy called the school district and harassed them til they said whatever difference between "yay/nay" wasn't enough to keep her out again. Or, y'know, to shut them up. Whichever!
She wasn't my favorite person before that as she was kind of a killjoy. You know those people you want to smack instinctively, though it takes you awhile to figure out why? She was like that for me. Luckily I didn't have a ton of classes with her, ever, aside from SAIL once we both ended up there. We could avoid each other the rest of the time and I was fine.
Fast forward to middle school where the rules on everything changed. (I failed to get this memo and thus spent the next three years prepping myself for a miserable life in high school by being pretty miserable in middle school.) Sixth grade wasn't a big thing with her because again, only one class with her.
But oh, OH how she made the most of that one class. Come sixth grade, all the SAIL kids had to do this thing called O.M. and this involved you gathering 5-7 of your friends and picking one of five categories and then fulfilling the project requirements for that category.
This seemed to be likely to involve having to, I dunno, actually be seen by other people or talk in front of them or god knows what else, and I nearly panicked myself into oblivion. But then my oldest school friend M. reassured me that we could totally be on the same team and it would be awesome and all we had to do was sign up for the same category. So... despite being rather meh on whatever category she chose, I did because the idea of having to fend for myself completely alone was just not an option.
You have some idea of where this is going, don't you?
I've blocked a lot of this out and while I could ask Mums, I don't want to re-open that can of worms at the moment. So this part is a bit unclear and I apologize. After you signed up for a category, you then formed a team and signed up as that team on the door of the 7th & 8th grade teacher's classroom. I was the seventh person on a team but the job was done and I could breathe easy again.
Until I wasn't. Until Heather something-or-other who rode my bus was babbling about her team and it was my team only it wasn't my team anymore. Someone had erased my name so Heather could add her name. I freaked out because M and I had signed up with enough time for all the other teams to have formed in the meantime. I had no team. NO. TEAM. You couldn't get out of this, btw. You had to do OM.
Mums called and complained about how it wasn't fair that I should be penalized for someone else erasing my name and the school basically said "tough shit, find a new team." I found out pretty quickly what actually happened.
Heather was ~new~ and despite the fact that sixth grade was nothing but a parade of new, she was one of those girls you instantly know will be popular. Possibly Popular with capital letters. I was not. Rachael wanted to be on a team with Heather. So... she called up a meeting of the rest of team 2 or whatever it was, and said that my mother would take over the whole project and it would just be this horrible experience and g'ah, they should just avoid the whole thing by having Heather instead. I think M either missed this meeting too, or she thought they were all going to ignore Rachael. Or hell, maybe I got stabbed in the back but I don't think it was that one. M never had the patience for super drawn out drama, nor did she have the mind for it. Anyway, Heather was in and I was out.
Do you know what they do to kids who don't have a team and can't find one? That's right. Your teacher has to go around to each group that hasn't filled their quota and ask them if they'd like you to be part of their team. Technically you're supposed to do this, but there's just not enough humiliation involved in that.
So... I got paraded to the teams with the most sixth graders and offered up and surprise, surprise, Rachael's lie had made the rounds so just about everyone said no. Oh, hey, what's that, sixth grade me? You want to walk around the school library being shunned by everyone in your grade while trying super hard not to cry? Oh, you don't? Too bad.
I'm not even sure if it was worse that my teacher was incredibly nice but didn't seem to realize why no one was jumping at the chance to work with the fat kid who didn't wear jeans (it became a thing later on) and whose mother was apparently going to suck the fun out of everything. Also, probably red faced and on the verge of tears. Seriously, why did no one jump at this golden opportunity?
Eventually I think I got paraded by a team with a seventh grader (because she'd been through something similar a week prior when I thought I still had a team) and I think the combo of them having already accepted someone else and my teacher was getting fed up with a bunch of jerks in the sixth grade meant I was eventually allowed to join a group most begrudgingly.
I tried to make the best of it, but it was incredibly awkward every time Team 2 had a meeting at Heather's house so they'd all ride the bus and I'm sitting there like "oh, hey you backstabbers, I hope you die in a ditch. But not because the bus swerves off course because then I might be stuck with you even longer."
The plus side was that I made friends with that seventh grader since we were the two no one actually wanted on the team. :P Seriously, this was the best thing about this whole story. I just wish we'd managed to stay friends longer, but there's a huge gulf between 8th grade and high school so once it became clear I wasn't likely to go to her high school, our friendship sort of died out. While it lasted, though, it almost made up for the humiliation of being rejected so many times in such a very short period of time.
The next year I ended up... on a team with Rachael. And we made it past the regional and state devisions so we ended up at the big country-wide thing and guess who I had to share a room with?
Rachael. Who proceeded to spend the entire trip borrowing money from me. Money she never paid back. And no, we did not become friends after our stint as roommates. I ended up getting voted out of the spontaneous competition and since I wasn't in the other portion of the competition it was a lot like being told "you suck, get lost." I'm also pretty sure that it disqualified us, but no one would listen when I pointed that out.
The following year Rachael's father basically took over the group and we stalled out at regional or possibly state. I dunno. I did learn that her little sister was awesome and if I were a fictional version of me, I'd come to appreciate why Rachael was such a bitch (because everyone fawned over little sister) and that she took it out on the people around her. Instead I just laughed to myself every time I thought about it.
On the plus side, there are few people who are as good at connecting seemingly random words. The irony at becoming good at it as soon as I no longer needed to be is not lost on me.
Come high school, I'm not sure how much was just my awkwardness finally reaching a point that one might consider paranoia and how much was a helping hand from the nemesis.
Nowadays I don't think about her often, but when I do I wish her into a ditch. Maybe not dead, as it's entirely possible she has children now.
Click to view^Not as awesome as that. Sadly.