High school: first day
05 Jul 2010 Leave a Comment
in Childlike, Prose Tags: Catholic school, high school, klutz, uniform, back pack, falling, first day
The choice seemed pretty simple to me: either leave the familiarity of my friends for the private Catholic school where I would initially know one person, or attend the closest public school in my district that sported metal detectors at the doors guarded by gruff men in uniform who searched backpacks between classes. No, thank you. I’d rather chance it with the Catholics.
Aside from my best friend and his father, who happened to be the band director at the new school, I knew no one. Everyone else in the school, having attended parochial school together since kindergarten, had long since formed their cliques. I didn’t expect to be accepted right away. So it wasn’t a surprise to me when I found myself completely alone in a sea of almost a thousand other bustling students hurrying to their next classes.
That’s right – I said a thousand students. There were three hundred eighty four in my graduating class. You do the math.
The school was large – large enough to comfortably handle almost a thousand students. While the gym, music rooms, cafeteria and bookstore were off on their own in a separate wing of the building, the rest of the classrooms were contained in a three-storied set of hallways that, if one examined a cross-section, resembled bars on a jail cell. Four sets of staircases, one in each corner, got students to and from their classes. Each day, between each class, for some reason that still escapes me, the near-thousandfold student body opted to ignore three of the stairwells, thus bottlenecking onto the stairs nearest the cafeteria. Being a freshman without a mind of my own in the strange new land of high school, I followed like a lemming.
Did I mention this was a Catholic school? Having never attended anything but public school before, I was thrust into a world of new educational values: crucifixes in every room, mass every week, meatless Friday lunches and, strangest of all to me, uniforms.
Not my uniform exactly, but it may as well have been.
I have heard that since I graduated, my high school has since relaxed their standards of girl’s dress, allowing khaki pants and sneakers. But when I attended this particular school, girls were to wear white Oxford shirts, closed-toe and -heel shoes, and the most hideous wool-like plaid skirts ever invented by man. I can’t say they were wool, because wool has never felt so much like plastic. They were itchy, hot and uncomfortable, and, as we found out after graduation, fire-retardant.
Skirts were to be no higher than two inches above the knee, which translated to most mothers who had to hem their daughters’ skirts as mid-calf. The result was a school full of teenage girls who were horrified to wear such conservative garb, and thus rolled the tops of the skirts so as to shorten the hemline. It made for longer looking legs, but fatter, donut-shaped bellies.
In addition to rolling for shorter skirts, it was also the fashion at the time to don uniquely patterned boxer shorts, just in case a stiff breeze came along and caused the skirt to fly up over one’s tush. My personal favorite was the Big Dogs smiley face pair.
And so here I was, being carried up a flight of stairs by a sea of people who knew each other and where exactly they were going, all the while trying to negotiate the most uncomfortable, unflattering skirt I have ever worn or ever will wear. All things considered, I was doing pretty well. That is, until I reached the landing between the first and second floors.
It’s a pretty well known fact that I’m a klutz. I trip over my own feet on uneven surfaces, walk into doorknobs and regularly smack my head on cabinet doors left open. It was only natural that I should trip up the stairs in my new school in the most crowded stairwell with seemingly the entire school present as witnesses. But this wasn’t just an ordinary trip-and-fall-flat-on-my-face moment. This was an epic how-did-I-actually-manage-to-make-friends-after-that moment.
Being the dorky freshman I was, I didn’t trust that I would have enough time to stop at my locker in between classes. I packed every book I would need for the entire day into my back pack. The weight behind me may have contributed to my fall; I’m actually not sure how I managed to fall forward instead of backward. Unbeknownst to me at the time, I had forgotten to zip the top of the pack. So as I fell forward, the momentum caused the back pack slid over my head, spilling its entire contents onto the landing ahead of me. If that wasn’t bad enough, one of the buckled straps hanging from the back managed to latch on to the back of my skirt, pulling that up with it, too. Being my first day as a dorky freshman in an unfamiliar land, I hadn’t been privy to the boxer short style. The only thing separating my booty from the masses around me was a thin layer of white flowered cotton panties.
No one stopped to help me collect my belongings, though they were kind enough to sidestep me so as not to trod upon my fingers. I was late to my first geometry class.
The Giant Man of Snow
21 Dec 2008 1 Comment
in Childlike, Prose, Seasonal Tags: giant snowman, snow, snowman
Once upon a time, in the Great Land of Delaware, a magical Substance used to fall from the High-Up Sky, known as Snow. In the cold, long, dark Winter Months, one would often see Snow fall from the High-Up Sky and cover the Land in a blanket of white. Young Children would spend their Afternoons playing in the Snow, Building Forts and Throwing Snowballs. Tall Adults would spend their time Shoveling the Snow from walkways and Driving Carefully. It was a Happy Time.
However, this all happened a Long Time Ago. Today, although Snow often begins to fall from the High-Up Sky during the Winter Months, it is usually met by Unseasonably Warm Weather between the High-Up Sky and the Land. The Snow is then magically transformed to Rain. The Land is rarely covered with White Snow anymore. One is much more likely to see Rain fall from the High-Up Sky instead, which makes the Land become Wet and Squishy and Not Much Fun to play in.
But this story is not about Rain that makes the Land Wet and Squishy. This story is about a Young Girl who lived in the Great Land of Delaware a Long Time Ago, who spent a magical Day in a Snow-covered Land.
One brisk, cold, but sunny day during the Winter Months, the Young Girl awoke Very Early in the Morning to find that a great deal of Snow had fallen from the High-Up Sky the night before. The entire Land had been transformed into a silent, white Playground. Because the Day happened to be a Saturday, the Young Girl did not have to attend School, and she could spend the entire Day playing in the newly-fallen Snow. Jumping up and down, she could not contain her Excitement.
The Young Girl’s Guardians, the Tall Mother and Tall Father, bundled her up snugly so that she would remain Warm while playing in the Snow.
“What will you do today in the fresh Snow?” asked the Tall Mother.
“Today I will go down to the flat part of our family’s Land and make a Man out of Snow,” replied the Young Girl.
“That is a very Good Idea,” said the Tall Father. ”The Snow that fell last Night is perfect for making Men out of Snow, not Too Wet, and not Too Dry. I think I will join you.” And so the Tall Father bundled up as well, because even Tall Adults need to stay Warm in the Winter Months.
And so, the Young Girl and the Tall Father trekked out onto the Land until they found a Suitable Place to build a Man out of Snow.
The Young Girl asked, “Can we make our Man of Snow very big?”
“Of course. How big would you like your Man of Snow to be?” asked the Tall Father.
The Young Girl thought carefully for a moment. Then, her Face broke into a Large Grin. ”Can we make it taller than You?”
The Tall Father smiled broadly. ”I think we can manage that.”
And so, the Young Girl and the Tall Father went to work building their Man of Snow. They began by rolling a Ball of Snow so large that both the Young Girl and the Tall Father had to push with all of their Strength to move it. This Big Ball of Snow became the base of the Man of Snow.
The Medium Ball of Snow was not as large as the Big Ball of Snow, but it was still too large for the Young Girl to make on her own. This was then placed on top of the Big Ball of Snow.
With a sense of Great Pride, the Young Girl was able to roll the Small Ball of Snow all by herself. The Tall Father then lifted up the Small Ball of Snow and balanced it on top of the Medium Ball of Snow, which was balanced on top of the Big Ball of Snow. A good sense of Balance is Very Important when building a Man of Snow.
“Is this tall enough?” asked the Tall Father.
The Young Girl looked at the work they had done so far. ”Yes,” she replied. ”I think our Man of Snow is quite tall enough. But now he needs a face.”
“So he does,” said the Tall Father. And so they set off in search of a Suitable Branch with which to make a mouth, and Chunks of Wood with which to make eyes. After a Short While, their search was over, and the Suitable Branch and the Chunks of Wood were placed upon the Man of Snow’s face.
Just then, the Tall Mother emerged from the House. She carried in her Gloved Hands an Orange Carrot.
“I saw your Man of Snow from the House through a Window. It certainly is a large Man of Snow! Here,” she said, “I brought you an Orange Carrot to use for his nose.”
The Tall Father then reached up and pressed the Orange Carrot into the Man of Snow’s face. Then the Young Girl, the Tall Mother and the Tall Father stood back to admire their Handiwork. So did the Neighbors, who remarked that it was quite a giant Man of Snow.
Indeed, this Man of Snow was the largest that the Neighborhood had ever laid eyes upon, so he was dubbed the Giant Man of Snow. And the Young Girl was Proud to know that the Giant Man of Snow lived in her Land.
Common sense was out to lunch
05 Dec 2008 3 Comments
in Food, Photos, Prose Tags: toast
Stomach: “Mmmmmm. Toast sounds good. Let’s have some toast.”
Hands: “Hold your horses, the bread is toasting now!”
Two minutes later…
Hands: “Okay, toast has popped, butter is out, plate is ready. Let’s butter some toast!”
Stomach: “Toast toast toast!”
Brain: “Um, guys…”
Hands: “Hi, Brain! What’s happening? We’re making toast!”
Stomach: “Toast toast toast toast!”
Brain: “Not too much, Hands. But I have one little concern.”
Hands: “What’s that?”
Brain: “I don’t think your setup is quite right.”
Eyes: “It looks fine to us, Brain. Everything we need for toast is out.”
Stomach: “Toast toast toast toast toast!”
Brain: “I realize that, but look at how it’s set up.”
Eyes: “Sorry. We don’t follow.”
Brain: “It just seems inefficient, that’s all. I mean, don’t you think the plate should be a little closer to the butter dish?”
Hands: “It’s not that far, Brain. We can handle it.”
Brain: “I know it’s not far. But the toaster is right in your path.”
Hands: “Hey! Do you doubt my ability to move butter across short distances?”
Brain: “I’m not doubting you, Hands, but something just doesn’t seem right here.”
Hands: “Look. We’ve already buttered one piece of toast without incident. We don’t see why you’re so worried.”
Stomach: “Toast toast toast!”
Brain: “All right, all right. But don’t blame me when something goes wrong.”
Hands: “Puh-lease, Brain. We already told you, we can handle it. What could possibly go wrong?”
Five seconds later…
Brain: “I told you the plate should have been on the other side of the toaster.”
Eyes: “Hahaha! Awesome! We totally saw the whole thing!”
Stomach: “Toast toast toast toast toast!”
Hands: “How were we supposed to know the butter would get all melty and fall off the knife into the toaster?”
He of jellies with lemonpeels
21 Jul 2008 Leave a Comment
My email servers are fairly decent at keeping the serious spam out of my inbox, but every once in a while one gets through. Such an email managed to get through this evening from an unknown sender, and for some reason I decided to read it, rather than delete it on impulse. Perhaps it was the unusual subject, which read simply “>:-(” rather than the usual beseeching of “Miss Natalie Johnson” or one of her cohorts.
As to the movements of mr. Sanders. He went out, on their best behavior throughout the visit. But on her mother’s, and gazing into her face with london. It is there that i shall then i shall noticed it, craddock pointed out. There was he of jellies with lemonpeels cut in branches, long a meeting had better not be. But in imagining birdies in the nest, and easter churchbells, and intention. So with a rush she went on her way: be gorgeously salaried and equipped and fed by him myself. But you knew him first . . . And he on him, and felt ashamed of his outburst. He last: no, sir, i can’t say that i do really. Unless side of the heath, or i should have so, by the have not come without such proofs as may convince.
This is not the first such email I have received, but it was certainly the most coherent. About a week ago I received the following, with a subject heading of “:)”
Making new discoveries, and also for maintaining with great grief and stupefaction. When morning gained, won of. Percipere fruges, to reap, cat. On the same theme elsewhere. Some allusion most i. P. Caesar’s campcastle of arques. (dieppe, of water. K. P. Singha is incorrect in taking the burwan version is 692. Te in the first line men, is the spot known as vinasana, or the place and nonacquisition in the same light, that are sweet face. Had he been an american, he would, is attainable? Were they ignorant of the means indications are observable of good behaviour, chalmers. Rot! He’s a winger. And so the selection better tools than axe, jackknives, and a rope, except one for 536. Animittatah is explained by.
I think what tickles me most about these emails is that the poor English has reverted beyond the soliciting spam that would arrive almost daily years and years ago, before the niece of a friend of an ambassador of a tiny province in South Africa got wise to our wising up. I have no idea from whom these paragraphs of eloquent randomness come, but the utter gibberish that is trickling into my inbox makes me smile.
Sunday, 5:47am
27 Jan 2008 Leave a Comment
Bladder: “Psst. Pssssst!”
Brain: “Zzzzzzzzzungh?”
Bladder: “Hey, Brain, wake up!”
Brain: “Huh? Why?”
Bladder: “I have to go to the bathroom.”
Brain: “OK, just a minnunzzgh.”
Bladder: “Wake up everyone else while you’re at it. We can’t do this alone.”
One trip to the toilet later…
Body: “Thanks, buddy. I’m going back to bed.”
Brain: “Wait, you got me up for that? But I’m not sleepy anymore.”
Body: “Oh, I’m sorry about that. But we don’t need to be up for another three hours or so. Let’s get a little more sleep.”
Brain: “I think it’s too late, dudette. You know how it works: once I’m up, it’s kind of difficult to get back to a non-waking state.”
Body: “Fine. Can you at least keep quiet while I lay still for a while? I’d like to rest while I still have a chance.”
Brain: “Sure, of course. Have a nice rest.”
Eight seconds later…
Brain: “You know what’s really neat? That dream I was having last night. Let me see if I can remember it. I was in the car, and…no, it was a van. That’s right, it was Mom’s van! But it didn’t look like her van. You know how in a dream you can be in a place, but it doesn’t look or feel like the place, but somehow you know it’s still the same place even though in real life you wouldn’t have recognized it? That’s how it was in this dream, only it was in Mom’s van. So anyway, I was driving Mom’s van, and…no, I wasn’t driving. Actually, nobody was driving. I was in the back seat and the car was moving, but nobody was in the driver’s seat, but I wasn’t worried because the parking brake…”
Body: “Hey! I’m trying to get some sleep here!”
Brain: “Oooooh, my bad. Sorry about that.”
Body: “It’s all right, but please…”
Brain: “Say no more. My lips are sealed.”
Body: “Good.”
Another eight seconds later…
Brain: “I think you should exercise more often.”
Body: “What?”
Brain: “You’re out of shape. You should definitely exercise more often. Actually, you should exercise, period. You don’t need to go to the gym, because there’s some stuff you can do right here in the bedroom. We’ve got that big old yoga ball…why not blow it up? Remember those exercises that trainer taught you last spring? Arms could do push ups while Feet are balanced on the ball, or Tummy could hold everybody up as Back balances on the ball while Arms lift weights. Actually, Arms don’t look so bad yet. But Tummy and Butt and Thighs are in sorry shape these days. I need to give them a good talking to.”
Thighs: “You know, Brain, it’s kind of hard to exercise first thing in the morning if you’re completely exhausted because someone upstairs was making too much noise and kept you awake all night.”
Brain: “Hey there, Thighs! Are you up, too?”
Thighs: “We’re trying not to be. We’re all trying to get some shut-eye down here, but you’re gabbing too much.”
Brain: “Oooh, so sorry, guys.”
Eyes: “Actually, we don’t want to stay shut anymore. Hands were rubbing us and now we’re kind of up, too.”
Tongue: “I’m a little dry. I sure could use some water. Do we have any water?”
Brain: “It’s on the night stand.”
Right Arm: “Where? I can’t find it.”
Brain: “Eyes, would you help Right Arm, please?”
Eyes: “Sure thing.”
Tongue: “Thanks, guys. I needed that.”
Left Arm: “Could you all move over, please? I’ve lost feeling because I had to be on the bottom tonight.”
Brain: “I have a better idea! Let’s go check our email!”
THE BLACK CAT and THE BOY Who Was Never Superstitious
30 Dec 2005 Leave a Comment
This holiday has proven to be both a failure and an unexpected success in terms of ransacking my parents’ house for mementos from my youth. At Mike’s request, I searched high and low for The Black Cat, but all in vain. We may never know the fate of that treasure. I did, however, manage to unearth its sequel, The Black Cat and the Boy who was Never Superstitious, a thrilling exploration of the human psyche which had completely slipped away from my memory.
As you may recall, I was wonderfully excited about the assignment of writing a Short Story. That being the case, I completed The Black Cat long before the rest of the students in the class had completed their own stories, and therefore began work on another tale of another evil cat. I suspect that this work was completed with the knowledge of only Miss Bridges and the Creative Parent, so as not to provoke the wrath of my classmates and brand me a dork and teacher’s pet.
I wonder if J.K. Rowling began in a similar manner? I sincerely doubt that she had the help of a Creative Parent. If she did, I could consider her an inspiration, and follow suit to publish a 7-part series of novels about evil felines that roamed everywhere from the backwaters of Romania to the parking lot of Super Fresh. After all, I do seem to have tapped into the formula of titles: “Harry Potter and the …” :: “The Black Cat and the …”
Regardless of whether I will one day become the next J.K. Rowling, I am simply tickled to present to you the much-forgotten, yet by now highly-anticipated, sequel to The Black Cat. To make reading easier (as my handwriting was that of a third-grader, and I had to seriously shrink the image to make it fit), I have provided an accurate transcript (including the one minor spelling error) to accompany the scan of the original story. Also included is the original title page, illustration by the author, and biography with photograph.
S’amuser!
THE BLACK CAT and THE BOY Who Was Never Superstitious
There once was a cat as black as night. Most people feared the cat for the people were superstitious.
One night, the cat passed by a closed drug store. Inside the drug store was a boy working the night-shift. His name was Andrew James. Andrew was the only one in the town who wasn’t superstitious. When he saw the cat, he tried shooing it away by the cat walked into the shabby drugstore.
It was now midnight. The cat stared at Andrew. He was hypnotized. He was now superstitious! He scrambled away from it. The cat followed close behind. Then the cat dissapeared and was never seen again! As for Andy, he turned away every time he saw a black cat.
Megan Register is a 3rd grade student at Mt. Pleasant Elem. This is her second book published. Her other hobbies are dancing, swiming and running.
The black cat
19 Oct 2005 Leave a Comment
in Books, Childlike, Prose Tags: black cat, elementary school, Gog, short story
Once upon a time, in the faraway land of Mount Pleasant Elementary School, a young, beautiful teacher named Miss Bridges gave her third grade class an assignment: write a Short Story. The story could be about anything we wanted, as long as it was written in the English language. Once our stories had been graded and returned to us, we would spend one class period making covers for our little “books,” with the help of cardboard, fabric, glue and a very Creative Parent.
I was terribly excited about this assignment. I had always loved coming up with detailed adventures on which to send my Barbie dolls, My Little Ponies and stuffed animals. Now I had the chance to actually write one of them down! I was determined to write the best and, since Halloween was approaching, scariest story Miss Bridges had ever read. It would be so scary that Miss Bridges would come back after reading it and say to me with a pale face, “Megan, that was the scariest story I have ever read! I’ll never be able to sleep again!”
I was fully aware of all of the essential elements of a Short Story, such as Plot, Setting and Characters. Ready to incorporate them all, I set to work thinking of the scariest things imaginable.
The first thing I needed was a Setting. I immediately thought of the story of Dracula, which I had heard only a few months before. The setting of a Lonely Castle in the dark, dreary land of Transylvania unsettled me much more than the vampire himself. I decided that such a Lonely Castle sitting atop a stony, lifeless hill would be perfect. Below the Lonely Castle sat a Happy Village.
Now that I had a setting, I needed a Protagonist. I honestly cannot remember if there was a single protagonist or not, but I do know that the Happy Village was populated with good and kind villagers. That’s all I can tell you about that. Give me a break, it was fifteen years ago.
Next, I needed an Antagonist, someone or something so scary that Miss Bridges would be trembling with fright as she turned the pages. I thought for a while, trying to decide between a Zombie and a Mad Scientist. Suddenly, it hit me: what is the most evil creature on the planet? A Cat! A wicked, nasty, evil, soulless Cat! But wait…it gets better: the Cat was Black. Everyone in the village knew about and feared the Black Cat. That may have been in part because the Black Cat lived alone in the Lonely Castle, which no living thing would come near, and so the villagers wondered how it stayed alive with nothing to eat. The answer is simple: it was an evil Black Cat!
Finally, I needed a Plot. Well, that part was simple. On the most evil night of the year, which happened to be the night before Halloween, when the moon was full and there wasn’t a cloud in the sky, the Black Cat would come down to the Happy Village and scare people. I don’t think the Black Cat killed anyone; he just scared people. There may have been a vampiristic element of blood-sucking in there, but, again, it was fifteen years ago, and without the original manuscript I can’t be sure of anything but my own faulty memory.
Looking back, I have to admit that it wasn’t the best plot ever written. Keep in mind, however, that I was under a serious deadline, and wasn’t as concerned with plot as I was with ambiance. After all, my story was truly in the spirit of the really awful horror movies from the 1950s and 60s. Look at Gog: nothing happened in that film. A couple of robots gone wrong terrorized a couple of scientists amongst an hour and a half of boring. My evil Black Cat scaring a village of good people was much more interesting than that.
Most important of all, I needed a Title. I decided not to do anything too fancy, lest I make the other kids in the class jealous, so I stuck with a simple and to-the-point title: The Black Cat.
The Black Cat was about four pages long. These pages were only about six inches square, in order to fit into the Small Book Cover provided by the Creative Parent. On the first page, the Title was written in Large Letters. The inside of the Back Cover was covered with my own Colorful Illustration of the Black Cat skulking down to the Happy Village. I was incredibly pleased with that Colorful Illustration, as I made sure that the path from the Lonely Castle to the Happy Village was smaller in the distance, so as to show depth. The Short Story itself was handwritten on those six-inch-square pages, complete with my own lines to keep the print straight. I chose a Fabric of shiny purple-silver to complete the Small Book. Miss Bridges was quite pleased.
Unfortunately, the Small Book about the Black Cat is now missing in action. It was either thrown out years ago, or is lost amongst the boxes of Megan Masterpieces that my mother has stored in the attic. I’ll look for it when I’m home for Thanksgiving. If it does resurface, I’ll be sure to post it here in all its original glory.
say what?