Where it all went wrong

In my thirteen years of public education, I was called to the principal’s office twice. The first of these two times happened in second grade.

I was outside for recess quite literally wandering around by myself – probably wondering why it wasn’t okay for me to play My Little Pony dolls at school like I did on the weekends with my little lady friend who lived down the street.

I’m dead serious.

I gave her one for her birthday once whose hair grew long and shortened depending on which way you twisted its neck. I picked it out for her because it’s what I wanted but didn’t get because I knew it was technically a girl’s toy. So instead of asking for it from my parents, I gave it to her and would completely bogart it whenever I was at her place. That pony was fierce like you wouldn’t believe.

Actually, I think that’s where I developed my love of weave and telling people to hold it.

Back to business…I was wandering when one of my older brother’s friends came up to me. He was always getting in trouble but he liked me well enough. His eyes were bright the way a fourth graders were when they knew something awesome was about to happen like Tommy throwing up on the swing or Billy twisting his ankle after falling down a hill. You know, things people care about before we find out about sex.

“Ben….did you hear? You were called to the principal’s office!”

His eyes were beaming with excitement and a bit of pride in his friend’s baby brother for being so bad ass – excitement and pride that quickly fizzled away as I broke down into tears and hid behind a tree.

Naturally, if he can’t be proud of me he can sure as hell rat me out so that’s exactly what he did, leading to my most memorable walk of shame, sobbing while being escorted by a teacher to the office. It was pretty much death row for me. I assumed that my chances at a future as a doctor, mathematician or pilot had already been tainted beyond recovery with each step that I took – not yet understanding that I get squeamish when it comes to body things, that I would grow up to not believe in numbers and that I don’t have the attention span or reliability to be trusted with an aircraft.

And then, between gasps for breath, I heard the principal explain to me that I had been called to the office for something positive, despite my dramatic distress making him wonder if I had in fact stolen someone’s lunch money or peeked into the girls washroom.

“Remember last year in first grade when you wrote a story about going to work with your dad?”

No. When you are six-and-a-half years old, you do not remember anything past that blue fruit by the foot that you ate before you attempted to hop on the underground railroad to avoid ending up exactly where I was sitting.

“Well, you did write a story and it won a competition! You’re going to be published!”

And so began my ultimate life journey toward being a blogger although things have changed since then. As a matter of fact, my second trip to the office was in seventh grade for drawing a satirical advertisement for milk featuring my artistic interpretation of Pamela Anderson.

See? Once you learn about sex…