New Job Starts Tomorrow

Okay. Let's just say I hate first days. Really hate them. As in would sooner insert my finger into a cat's butt than have a first day, a first date, a first conversation, a first ANYTHING.
Why?
Because I was tramatized at a young age. Really terrifying, to be honest. Scarred me for life...

So, here's me in fourth grade: Taller than all the boys, boobs busting out of the 'trainer' bras mum got me at the end of the summer. I've already spent 6 weeks in the slow kids class while the bustling state of Mississippi attempts to read my transcript certifying that I am not, in fact, a 'slow learner.' So finally, after the administration spent weeks of deciphering what must have been SUPER difficult English on my transcript, they put me in the smart kids class. (This being Mississippi, the smart kids class consisted of anyone that could read a few words, recite the alphabet and anyone who happened to be over the age of ten. I mean, if you've failed the fourth grade a few times, you should OBVIOUSLY know what you're doing by now, right?)

Anyway, moving along. They hadn't warned me or my parents about the switch so I wasn't even remotely prepared when they came to take me out of the slow kids trailer. See, the slow kids didn't get actual classrooms. They get trailers. On cement blocks. With plywood for stairs. Super. Yeah. So I obviously had not had time to plan my first day outfit. Something truly necessary to all of the female race. We get up extra early on first days to make sure the hair is perfect, the clothes are pressed and the car has gas. Or, in the case of a 9-year-old, make sure the hair is sprayed into a giant permed matzo ball, the jeans are tightrolled tight enough to cut off circulation to lower extremities and Mom knows to drop you off a block away from school so you can walk in with the cool kids.

But instead, they caught me on a day when Mom had made me brush my perm. Which you are NEVER supposed to do. It destroys the curl. Tragedy, I know. But she made me brush it. Said hair had to be brushed at some point and that mine was starting to look like a rat's nest with bangs. So my hair was frizzy and I had left my pony-tail holder in the car. (The remedy to a bad hair day is always a pony-tail.) I was wearing a pink jumpsuit with a fuzzy dog on the front that had a zipper right between his eyes for a pocket. I HATED this outfit. In fact, I hadn't worn it all school year and, along with the mandatory brushing that morning, Mom had told me I had to wear the pink jumpsuit because she'd spent $40 on it this summer after I'd begged her to buy it. I told Mom that the pink jumpsuit just wasn't COOL in Mississippi like it had been in Texas. All the other girls at Wake Village Elementary had had one of those jumpsuits... But at McLaurin Elementary, all the girls wore tight-rolled jeans. Never jumpsuits. So I've got frizzy hair (big surprise), a really unattractive --and unflattering, I might add-- pink jumpsuit and I'm carrying my pencil holder I had made at home over the weekend. The slow learners had thought I was cool for being so crafty--so I had brought a new pencil holder to school that morning to replace the one I had given to Danielle, my friend in the trailer class. The pencil holder was a can that I had pasted dog ears on and made a three-dimensional nose to glue on the front. It had googly-eyes and a tongue that hung down the bottom. It was bitchin.

So anyway, I get ushered into my new class first thing in the morning. The cutest boy in the class laughed at the dog on my jumpsuit. Started barking. REAL mature... :) All the other girls had sleek blond hair with sprayed bangs. Not permed hair with sprayed bangs. No one had crafty pencil holders. And no one had boobs. Which was unfortunately and painfully obvious as the jumper ended right below my boob line, acting sort of like a lifter for the girls.

The day passes by... I'm shunned at lunch. I don't have any books so I have to share with the 11-year-old girl who's like six feet tall and has a lovely aroma. Eau de Unbathed.

And then. In the last class of the day. I get my period. As in the things 9-year-old girls don't get. As in the thing that Mom hasn't even thought to have 'the conversation' with me about, being as I'm 9-years-old. I don't have the slightest clue what's going on. All I know is something very funny is going on DOWN THERE. So I get up out of my chair when the last bell rings. And the cute boy who barked at my outfit that morning starts screaming that I'm bleeding. All the kids lean in closer, cuz there's nothing cooler than having the new girl bleed. Blood on the chair, blood on my--suddenly very pale-- pink pants.

So the teacher comes over and says, "Ya'll shut up. Ain't nothing to scream over. Ya'lls get on out the door to ya'lls buses. This one here just started her period, that's all."

That's all. Just announce it to everyone. Thanks Mrs. Smith. I see that jerry-curl has done wonders for you.

Anyway. So that's my story. ;) Sad, ain't it?

If anyone sees me on my way to West Little Rock in the morning and I suddenly veer off the road... rest assured, it's only to vomit. Happens every first day.