Time: November, Circa 1972
Grade: Kindergarten
Attitude: Snarky
Coloring, the alphabet and connect-the-dots. Three of my favorite childhood pastimes. Know what my favorite childhood pastime was NOT?
Sharing my hard work with a tall, skinny, western-belt-buckle-wearing, ignorant redhead named Artie-Fartie.
In all fairness, his parents didn't name him Artie-Fartie. We did. The Kindergarteners.
Mrs. Welch had given us a morning assignment. Connect the dots using our ABC's, then turn it in. Easy enough, I rocked at Language Arts.
Ooooh! It's an ELEPHANT! Cool.
I turned it in and got my gold star. When I returned to my seat at the table (next to Artie-Fartie), I couldn't help but notice that he was stuck on letter.....B. That's right. He didn't know what came next.
As I was coloring a worksheet, I heard Artie-Fartie make a noise at me.
Psssttt!
I ignored him. Choosing a pink crayon, I continued working on my circus zebra.
Psssssssttttt!
I set my crayon down and looked at him.
"What?"
"What comes after B?"
This gave me pause for thought. I had done my work. I had turned it in as instructed and I had gotten my gold star. Now Artie-Fartie wanted to ride my coattails to Gold Star Glory, without doing the work!
F*ck that.
Looking around surreptitiously and seeing that nobody was watching, I leaned in and whispered.....
"L"
Artie-Fartie eagerly connected B to L and then looked at me expectantly.
Oh, this was too easy.
"F"
And on it went. According to Artie-Fartie's connect the dot puzzle, O followed S. Which followed P. Which followed Z.
And so on.
Nothing can compare to the sneaky, snarky, gleefully AWESOME feeling I had. Except for Artie-Fartie's f*cked up picture.
It looked like this:
 |
| Artie-Fartie's Effed Up Elephant |
He looked at his effed-up elephant doubtfully.
"Are you sure?"
Fighting to keep from laughing, I nodded vigorously.
"Yours looked like this?"
"Yep. And I got a gold star."
That sealed the deal. I mean, who doesn't want a gold star?
Except.....when Artie-Fartie turned his work in, Mrs. Welch looked at him incredulously, wrote a huge letter F (which comes after E) on his paper and sent him to the corner.
He turned to look at me accusingly. I shrugged my shoulders, and then turned away.
Picking up my pink crayon, I continued to work on my circus zebra.
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This week's assignment was, when meeting someone for the first time, describing a scene from your life that would help show the person your true self.
