With graduation season nigh upon us, I thought what would be better than to take a moment to celebrate such achievements and milestones in our lives?
Not to #HumbleBrag, but my Ph.D. graduation ceremony only lands at #2 on my list of diplomas that I’m ----- proud of earning.
No, the #1 spot came many many moons earlier. Maybe it’s easier if I just start at the beginning…
With Friends Like These…
My academic career didn’t exactly get off to the most stellar of starts. Sure, the version of me standing before you now may have earned a reputation for being an exemplar student and/or teacher’s pet, but things weren’t always this way.
In fact, I’m lucky I made it past my first year in the the fine public education system of Rolla U.S.D. 217.
In kindergarten it seems that I developed a rather nasty habit of never finishing most of the in-class worksheets we were assigned. Apparently I was too-cool-for-school, and instead would often only get 1/3 of the way through before declaring the 6-year-old equivalent of ” ----- this shit ! I’m out!”
Back then, our desks were the kind where we would store all our supplies and papers in the compartment underneath, which was accessed by an uncovered opening in the front. For lack of the proper term, I guess you could describe them as “cave style” desks.
And in the back of the cave was a veritable boneyard of all the homework that I had given up on. Actually, it would be more apt to say that it was a straight-up rat’s nest. I would just jam one worksheet after another back there, eventually creating a packed wad of compact crinkled paper products that accounted for ~40% of the available volume.
To be honest, I have know idea what my end game was here. There’s a chance that I had the intention of circling back round and finishing things up, but you know how things are. Once you fall behind a certain amount, it just stops making sense to try to catch up.
I would shove that shit back there and pretend it never existed, with the mentality “Out of sight, out of mind…no way this will ever come back and haunt me!”
In my defense, though: where the hell was Ms. Stanley, our beloved kindergarten teacher? Or Miss Archuleta, her assistant?
I had originally assumed that after one or two missed assignments they would be all over my ass. It was about two weeks into this routine before I stopped being surprised by their indifference, and just assumed that they were only pretending to care about our intellectual development.
But I was happy enough falling through the cracks of our esteemed educational system–I wasn’t about to say anything and spoil my sweet arrangement.
Now mind you, this wasn’t just a blip on the radar. This was how the majority of my kindergarten year went. It was a chronic condition.
Again, though, I wasn’t complaining–I was on cruise control, destination: graduation.
You know how sometimes you can just smell a bad omen in the air? Like, you have no reason to believe the present moment is anything worth remembering, but somehow you can just sense that it’s about to become part of your long-term memory for all the wrong reasons?
Well, you’ll be interested to hear that scientists recently confirmed what you’re picking up on is actually the ultra-sonic sound of the other shoe dropping.
Here’s another example: it’s that feeling one gets right before turning that last corner when coming home, only to find all sorts of emergency vehicles in front of your house.
And so it was for me, when I came into class one mid-spring morning to find some hub-bub around my desk. As I was trying to make sense of what was going on, the two teachers and two of my friends–whose names and genders will remain anonymous for reasons which will be apparent before this is all over with–stepped aside from the desk, revealing a large stack of wrinkled papers.
What. The. Fuck.
These two asshats–who, may I remind you, I had previously considered to be friends–had for no dogdamn1Intentional dyslexia out of consideration of my mother’s sensibilities. reason decided to come in early one morning for the sole purpose of cleaning out my desk.
My desk.
My ----- desk. Like, how is that even any of their concern?!? Mind your own ----- business, you ----- busy-bodies. Also, how did they even know about my secret rat’s nest? That there’s a question that will haunt my to the grave.
You know what? Something just occurred to me over 33 years later. I bet you anything that the exact date was March 15th, 1987.
Why? Because, it sure the hell felt like the Ides of March. Now I know how Julius Cesar felt when he eeked out “et tu, Brute?” just before giving up the ghost.
Talk about getting stabbed in the gut by a confidant…
Anyways I was never given a reason why they conspired so against me. But guess what? I had to make up all that work. ALL OF IT.
As you can imagine, I was furious. T’was indeed a right load of bullshit. But there was nothing I could do. I had been ----- in the ass fair n’ square, I suppose.
I think I blacked out after that, as I know that I completed all 532Just an approximation. It could have been as low as 20 and as high as 100. previously half-assed worksheets, but I have no clear memory of going through such hell. The next thing I seem to remember clearly was the last day of kindergarten…
Screwed By The Bell
After proving that there was no mountain of schoolwork too high for me to overcome, you would think that it would be smooth sailing all the way to having that sweet, sweet hard-earned diploma in my hand.
Wrong. WRONG.
Finally, the last day of kindergarten had arrived. I was both excited and nervous–I guess I had turned the ship around enough on the school year that the teachers gave me the honor of what was the kindergarten equivalent of a valedictorian speech: I had the role of giving the welcoming speech at the beginning of the ceremony.
If I remember correctly, I was the only student who had a solo speaking role. Every other little dumb skit or speech they had us do was in groups of two or more. So this was a big ----- deal.
Maybe I was preoccupied with that on my mind, or maybe it was the G.I. Joe parting gift that one of the teachers had given me that was distracting me. Either way, at the end of the day I was sentimentally cleaning out my cubby, and I somehow missed the final bell of the day.
Noticing that all of a sudden I was alone in the classroom, I decided that I better scurry off and catch the bus home. After all, I still needed to eat dinner and change into some graduation-worthy clothes before rolling back into town at 6 for the Big Event.
Now the kindergarten classroom was all the way across the building from where us kids would load up on the buses, but thanks to a full wall of windows, you could see the buses all the way down the hallway.
I threw all my stuff haphazardly into my backpack and sprinted down the hall. My G.I. Joe fell out of my bag about halfway, and after bending over to pick him up, I looked back up only to see Bus 7 pull on out without me. I furtively sprinted the rest of the way, but it was all to no avail.
It was official: I was screwed.
And, man that feeling sucked–like being punched in the gut yet again. I imagined that I was going to have to camp out in a dark locked school building for the next 3 hours.
Fortunately, the school had advanced C.B. radio technology back then, and the principal was able to call our bus driver and tell him that he had royally copulated the canine in leaving me behind. He was instructed to pull over and wait until the principal could burn rubber in the trusty school station wagon and deliver me at the rendezvous point a few miles outside of town.
So…short story long, disaster was averted. However…you know how sometimes you can just smell a bad omen in the air?
Is Thing Even On?
I should have never bothered returning one last time for the stupid graduation ceremony. I would have been much better off just ----- off all that make-up work and flunking out a couple months earlier.
It was only like 4 sentences, but that welcoming speech would seem like the Gettysburg address to any 6-year-old, and I was nervous af about getting it over with.
Finally, my moment in the spotlight rolls around. I walk up to the microphone, and I ----- crush it.
Except…
Except…it didn’t count.
Some dumb ----- hadn’t done a mic check, and so there I was, trying to deliver my soliloquy while simultaneously trying to figure out why everyone was giving me blank stares.
“Uh, is this thing on?” **taps microphone**
The crowd erupted in laughter, as I embarrassingly tried to figure out how to turn the microphone on like I was George Costanza trying to open a condom wrapper.
I eventually got it on and sped through my welcome speech again. Though you could say that I didn’t quite have the same warm, friendly tone that I had the first time around…
What should have been a mic-drop moment for young B.J. turned out to be a moment where I wanted to rush into the audience and beat every one of those assholes over the head with the microphone instead.
Nooooo…I wasn’t traumatized by that experience. Not at all…
Epilogue: Where Are They Now?
Now, I’m not one to hold a grudge, but some ill-doings just stick with you. I’m sure if I knew who the lazy motherfucker in charge of the sound at graduation was, I would have lovingly nourished a grudge against him/her, but alas, I never had the luxury of knowing their identity. But I digress…
Fast-forward to my freshmen year of high school. I had moved away to Missouri in third grade, and I had just moved back to Rolla to live out my high school years with my dad. My two desk-cleaning “friends” were still around, and I was enjoying reconnecting with them. It was almost like a fresh start, with no history, no drama.
One evening late in the school year, I found myself hanging out alone with one of these two. Now, what I hadn’t known was that he/she had a bit o’ the feelings for me. And well, I was about to find out.
Before I knew what was happening, I realized an amorous advance was headed my way. Tragically, their affections were unrequited on my end. Valuing their friendship and not wanting to hurt their feelings by playing along, my mind was reeling for a way out of the situation.
Thinking on my feet, I decided now would be a grand old time to bring up the decade-old bone I had to pick with them. It was a sure-fire way to diffuse the situation…
“Heh heh. Hey, do you remember that time in kindergarten when you and ----- 3”God” is not their real name, I just used that to guarantee it would be censored. Fun fact: I thought “motherfucker” would surely have done the trick, but nope. came in early and cleaned out months’ worth of incomplete work out of my desk? You know I had to make up all that work before I could graduate, right? I’m still pissed at you two for screwing me like that!”
Instead of pulling away, he/she only moved in closer.
“Sorry for screwing you like that…”
Then in a way too sultry voice:
“Speaking of screwing, how about you let me make it up to you now?” *wink wink*
Me:
The point of the story is friends shouldn’t screw each other.4For the record, despite my strategic misstep, I was able to stand my ground, and no screwing occurred. So…Happy Mother’s Day to my future wife? Also, Happy Mother’s Day to my mama, raising me right not fornicate. Proverbially or literarily.
Wait, is that right? “Literarily”? I wouldn’t know–I barely made it out of kindergarten…
Content created on: 9/10 May 2020 (Sat/Sun)
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