Archive for March, 2009

Michael Procopio
Kindergarten

This is an excerpt from Michael’s essay The Cupcake: Through a Frosting, Darkly, which is about his overall distaste for said confections.

My first experience with birthday cupcakes left a bad taste in my mouth. A girl, who I shall call “Karen” (because that is her real name), was given a special 6th birthday party in our kindergarten class. Her mother was our ever-present teacher’s aide. For the special event, Karen’s mother had baked cupcakes into Scoopy’s ice cream cones, which would, I suppose, make them cone cakes. Karen’s was, unsurprisingly, more elaborate than the other cupcakes. Her name was even embossed on the cone. The rest of us got random names, none of which matched.

It is more than likely possible that I was jealous of the fact that, since Karen’s birthday fell within the school year and had a mother in a position of influence among the kindergarten-teaching set, she could be singled out for specialness, just as she was often awarded the title of “Wake-up Fairy”, which was bestowed upon the best napper in class on any given day. Snigger all you like, but I was a lousy napper and therefore, never allowed to play that particular rôle.

So it was with the most satisfying schadenfreude, that I witnessed the birthday girl bite off the tip of her tongue as she tucked into her special cupcake. The rest of us were shocked into silence when she screamed, the blood pooling over the frosting of her dessert as she opened her mouth to cry and dripping down the white apron-front of her party dress.

By high school, Karen was running around with the Heavy Metal crowd and, I believe, referring to herself as a “headbanger”. I’ve often wondered if that first taste of blood-tinged frosting influenced her future tastes. I’m not saying, I’m just saying.

For those who couldn’t make it happen, or those who were there but want a do-over:

Here are photos and videos from last week’s wonderful success of a Can I Sit With You? Live! event. We had a full house, talented storytellers, and a great, giggly, empathetic audience. Don’t miss the next one! And don’t forget to send us your own stories.

Click on Mr. Adamick to see the rest of our photos:

And now, the videos:

Amanda Jones’s The Cure of Nowhere tells how a trip to the tropics helped a classmate recover from her father’s suicide:

Sarah Dopp’s gleeful and charming performance of her story Will You Go Out With Me? made us all feel like we were right there with her at school, passing notes to her crush:

Mike Adamick’s The Weirdest Kid in the World uses humor to take on the compulsive behaviors and rituals he’s wrestled with since third grade:

Judy McCrary Koeppen also read her tale of puberty terror MEN-STRU-A-TION, but we didn’t record it this time, as we were fretting about camera memory — and we were lucky enough to record a previous performance:

Shannon Des Roches Rosa
Seventh Grade

My CISWY co-editor Jen frequently remarks that she is “Not nice.” I don’t believe her. But I do believe that I’ve been Not Nice for a long, long time, as this mortifying post illustrates.

I found every last part of seventh grade bewildering. The hundreds of new students, the maze-like new campus, the rows and rows of lockers, having to choose classes and then needing to switch between those classes six times each day, the concept of “popularity” and its blatant yet slippery links to student government elections, and the hundreds of new students.

My classmates and I had been plucked from our isolated, comforting, elementary school nerdling pod, and dropped into a massive social cage match. I found myself on the sidelines, confused and lost, in a holding pen with the geekiest geeks from five other elementaries.

I might have been at a social disadvantage, but I was also not a nice kid. And I quickly compensated for my social disorientation by picking on the weaker and geekier. Morgan Van Grundy and his bolo ties? Fair game. A friendly, gangly new kid with the then-rare name Cameron? In my sights. I quickly had them both squirming. Both asking me why I couldn’t be nicer to them. Asking what they had ever done to me.

I remained unrepentant. Besides, I lacked the self-awareness to explain that I preyed on them so I wouldn’t feel like fair game to the kids outside our fast-track classrooms.

After a few weeks as a free agent, I found an equally callous partner. Lara was a transplant from New York and had the accent to prove it. She was creative and vivacious and interesting, and told me secrets about life outside Southern California, about things like boroughs and fashion models. I started to spend afternoons at her house. I would moon over her designer jeans. She would tell me what it was like to have a single mom. We would talk in hushed tones about S-E-X even though no one else was home.

Lara was no more bone-evil than I was, but she shared my fondness for easy targets. So, when we weren’t gossiping, watching TV, dressing up, or laying waste to her family’s stash of Jello pudding pops, we were tormenting her neighbors and our classmates Deanna and Adele.

Deanna lived next door to Lara, and Adele lived a few houses down the street. They were good friends, and were cut from the same quiet, good-natured, studious cloth. I got the sense that Lara had been friends with them both in elementary school, but that they’d since had had a falling out. I never even bothered to ask what happened. I had no reason to target Deanna and Adele, not one — except that Lara wanted to pick on them, and I liked to pick on people. Because I was not a nice kid. Because it was easy. Because I felt powerless, and so craved power, no matter how tainted or piddling.

This is what Lara and I would do:

• We would walk behind Adele and Deanna and snicker.
• We would follow them onto the volleyball court during P.E. and demand to know what “that thing” on Adele’s face was (it was a beauty mark).
• We would “oink” at Deanna and her perky upturned nose when the teachers weren’t listening.
• We would call them at home, several times a day, and then hang up when they answered.

One day, a voice that wasn’t Deanna’s answered the phone at her house. It was a teenage girl’s voice, but a thick voice, a slow voice. I hung up and told Lara what I’d heard.

“Oh, that’s Deanna’s sister. She’s retarded. She wears maxi pads in the swimming pool!”

And, inexcusably, I laughed and called right back. The sister picked up the phone. I wondered again at her voice’s tone and texture, and then I asked for Deanna. Deanna picked up the phone, said “Hi?” and of course I hung up, because Deanna’s sister and our need to harass Deanna were two entirely separate issues.

But I thought about Deanna’s sister a lot, even as Lara and I kept up the harassment. What did the sister do all day? Did she go to school? Did she ever go out of her house?

Our own classes were small enough that after a few months we knew baseline biography information on just about everyone, so while I knew that Deanna had older parents, she never once mentioned her sister. Nor did anyone else. Not through five more years of classes together. I still wonder if Deanna’s sister was a source of pain, strength, peace, or all three. If Deanna’s silence was to protect her sister, herself, or both of them. If her silence was even a conscious effort.

Lara and I eventually gave up on Deanna and Adele because, to their credit, they ignored us. They didn’t have their parents or teachers intervene, they didn’t confront us, and they never retaliated in any way. They didn’t even acknowledge that we’d said or done anything to them. We stopped bothering them, because without reactions to fuel our actions, we lost our motivation.

We never succeeded in taking away even an ounce of their power.

Not that I didn’t find other victims to needle. After all, I wasn’t very nice.

—–

For those who now need something with which to wash their eyes, here is Susan Etlinger’s latest hero, slamming the foulness of the word “retard”:

by Gwendomama

My kindergarten teacher was Mrs. Masters. She was about 106 years old and she was … rather burned out I think. My three older siblings warned me that this was not a woman to cross. If you made her mad, then you would surely be sent to the principal’s office, where, it was rumored a well known fact that a paddle with nails would be waiting for your bottom. I was only four, but I was nobody’s fool.

I made it through the first few months unnoticed, which was the best possible situation for a student in her class. The two-story indoor wooden climbing structure kept me busy, and I cannot to this day forget the feel and texture of my silky quilted aqua-colored napping blankie. The toys with which we were provided were ample and aesthetically sound, and the clever children kept themselves occupied for the majority of the three hour school day.

I learned how to stand in line and raise my hand, sing when I was asked, trace and cut with scissors, and how to find the bathroom on my own.

I didn’t put enough glitter on my Halloween pumpkin to be showcased or featured — as evidenced by Heather Holt’s own dazzling masterpiece, but by Thanksgiving, the art project was all mine:

My traced-hand rainbow-feathered turkey ruled the center spot on the show-off board; I was cruising.
Then came the Santa project. You know the one:

I aced the cottonballs on the hat and on the beard. And then came the eyes. I had a strip of black paper, out of which I was supposed to cut Santa’s two eyes.
I cut out one; it was perfect, so I set it aside.

I cut another; it was also perfect, so I set it next to my first perfect one.

Oh no.

They did not match up.

They were not the same size.

I had two nearly perfect eyes; each one small and black and nearly circular. But they were not the same size.

My parents happened to have a prominently-placed Modigliani print in the house which severely disturbed me because of her uneven eyes. I mean, come on, look:

Slightly disconcerting to see at breakfast every day from the age of three, perhaps?

(Yes, it really was in the breakfast room.)

So it was, for some reason, important to me that my two little black construction paper Santa eyes, did, in fact — match.

I tried again. One eye, cut carefully with blunt-end scissors and most likely a protruding and thoughtful — or desperate — tongue … and then another eye, which was also perfect and lovely in its own right … but not matching even one of the others.

This continued until I had at least seven un-matching little black eyes.

I was tired, my chubby fists had just turned five years old, and my Mrs. M. guard was down. I had, in a small phrase, “had it.”

In an unprecedented fit of frustrated aggravation, I threw my scissors down on the table. Hard. Threw them down.

And oh.
Oh.
Uh-oh.
I was in trouble.

Mrs. Masters saw it. She heard it. She came for me.

I was doomed to leave the group of the good children.

She came for me and I knew what was coming: I had seen it many times before.

She came at me from behind; I looked over my right shoulder just in time to notice her grabbing for my right ear. Which I instantly felt.

“WHAT IS THIS?” She shrieked, pointing accusingly at the thrown scissors.

“I-I-I—can’t do it.” I cried, snotty-faced and pointing at my discarded mismatched black eyes. “They don’t match!”

“WE! DO! NOT! THROW! SCISSORS!” She bellowed at me, as she waved the blunt-end scissors in my face.

“The eyes!” I pleaded, “I wanted to make them the same, but, but…buh…”

I sputtered…I was afraid that I would pee my pants if I went on…

“We DO NOT THROW SCISSORS!!!!!” She repeated, as I shivered.

She had never let go of my ear, but now she lifted, she yanked. I was standing, and she was dragging, dragging me by my ear towards the door. I was shamed. I was a Bad Kid.

Out to the hallway I was led by my right ear and an irate and decrepit teacher, and there I was left. At the mercy of the nail-filled-paddle-wielding principal. Which everyone knew to be real. Especially those of us with older siblings. Because why would they lie to us about something that serious, right?

I was momentarily grateful when she released my ear (and with it, the rest of my body) with a flourish into the hallway and slammed the door between us.

I was alone in the hallway.

I was at one end of the hall. At the other end, was the ominous and fabled principal’s office.

I had been in school for three months. I had just turned five.

And I was in trouble. Big Trouble.

I thought about the scissors. And the eyes. And I was truly sorry. But I didn’t know how to get back into the room. I waited.

I waited some more.
I waited.

Then I heard footsteps. They sounded Big, and they were coming from the opposite end of the building. You know: the office end.

On my left was a drinking fountain, protruding from the wall. One at which I had obediently lined up approximately 134 times. Under it was a hollow ceramic sink and some pipes. And I? I was a shrimp.

I scanned the interior of the ceramic drinking fountain, surveyed the heavy steps coming towards me and then I made a leap.

Up. Into the underside of the fountain. And I fit.

I pushed my feet against the pipe and wedged myself into the cold and bumpy ceramic innards. I could see nothing but the tan and gray tiles below. I tried to pull my feet up higher as I heard the footsteps coming unmistakably toward me … and then they slowed … oh-yes-they-did … they slowed down until I finally un-scrunched my eyes and looked down to see the two black loafers which belonged to the principal. They stopped in front of the drinking fountain. I was trying to pull my dangling tights-clad legs up into the piping, but it was too late. I had been noticed.

Tap tap tap … he knocked on the top of the ceramic.

I hiccuped.

Tap tap tap … “Who goes there?” He demanded.

He leaned over to see who was under there, and I felt it coming — I couldn’t stop it — it rose up, made its way out of my mouth, and I vomited. Straight down onto the shoes.

He carefully pulled me out of the pipes, avoiding the puddle beneath me, and walked me by the hand, across the hall to the nurse’s office. She gave him some towels to clean his shoes and told me to lie down on the green leatherette chaise. I curled up, scrunched my eyes shut again and waited.

My mother came to collect me and my stomach flu vanished as quickly as it had arrived.

One year later, I had the good fortune of having the nicest first grade teacher in the world. When Mrs. Trowbridge showed us all how to fold the paper over before cutting if we wanted two matching anythings, I was amazed at what I could create.

And I was pissed at Mrs. Masters.

I mean, how hard would it have been?