A Short List of Embarrassing Things That Happened Before High School

This has nothing to do with travel or teaching, but I just needed to think of some things to make myself laugh tonight.  Enjoy.

·         In kindergarten, I stole a fistful of coins from my dad while he was sleeping.  I spent that whole school day reveling in the thrill of rebellion.  When my dad came to pick me up from school, he saw me playing with some of the coins.  He asked where I’d gotten them, and I panicked.  I made up a lie that I’d sold some of my crayons to my best friend.  He said that it wasn’t a fair trade, and I’d have to give the money back.  He made me get out of the car, and we walked over to my teacher to explain what had happened.  The teacher called over my best friend and her mom and told my friend that we’d have to trade back.  I burst into tears the second I saw my friend’s confused face, and I had to tell my dad, my teacher, my best friend, and her mom that I had not only lied, but had also stolen.

·         Another time in kindergarten, I rolled over my own face with a floor scooter that I was sitting on during gym class.

·         For whatever reason, I never had to go to the bathroom during the scheduled bathroom breaks in 1^st Grade, so I would always end up asking to go in the middle of class.  My teacher got tired of it and handed me 6 popsicle sticks one morning.  She said that, each time I went to the bathroom, I would have to turn in a popsicle stick.  If I ran out, I couldn’t go again that day.  I was a painfully shy child, and I hated drawing attention to myself.  My desk never seemed squeakier than the times that I had to open it to pull out a popsicle stick, and when I carried the stick to my teacher’s desk, I felt like I was wielding some sort of glowing beacon.  My pee schedule lined up with class bathroom breaks within a week.

·         I had to miss recess once in 3^rd Grade because my classmate screamed in response to my telling a slightly dirty joke during bathroom break.

·         In 5^th Grade, a teacher walked into the bathroom just as I was ninja kicking a stall door.  She stared at me for a second, totally unsure how to respond, and then continued into another stall without saying anything.

·         When I was about 10 years old, my hormones went nuts, and I started to pit out like an overweight, middle-aged man "Sweatin’ to the Oldies" with Richard Simmons.  My participation grade dropped because I was too self-conscious to raise my hand.  I also had to pin two layers of sweat shields into my shirts each morning.

·         One of my friends informed me in 6^th Grade that my fly was down.  I was convinced that it would be more obvious for me to zip my pants in the middle of the classroom than it would be for me to have an open fly, so I continued walking around with my fly down.

·         At some point in Jr. High, one of my best friends and I were chosen to play hand chimes along with a song we were singing in choir.  The choir director put us next to each other.  When it was time for us to play the song for church, my friend accidentally started to play early.  I laughed so uncontrollably that, not only was I unable to play my chime at all, but then I peed under my choir robe.