Little Did I Know

I spent most of the day putting out office fires and rifling through all of my childhood memories like a Rolodex. Who uses one of those anymore? The embarrassing ones always seem more vivid. Shame was used to keep children in line. Remember “Another Brick in the Wall”?

When we grew up and went to school

There were certain teachers

Who would hurt the children anyway they could

Instead of the teachers, in my case, it was the students.

Masses. Everywhere. Animals. Inmates. Terror.

The best thing for a kid like me to do was to blend in and not get noticed by the unchecked, vicious little bastards teachers would do little to stop.

Public servants. 30 and out. Make no waves and live to be paid another day.

In classic, tragically-humorous fashion my younger years were wrought with fear and anxiety. I think it made me question life far sooner than my contemporaries, as it simply seemed surreal. One of the more laughable things I began to panic about was the thought I was the only person on the face of the planet with flatulence. Yes, I thought I was the only human being that could fart. How I arrived at this supposition was an evening of balancing myself, end up of course, against my parent’s rust-colored couch. After finally being able to put my feet on the ground over my head without rolling over, I quickly celebrated with a trumpet fanfare from the posterior section of my body.

What was that noise? Oh, God, why does it smell?! My child brain raced to remember if this had happened elsewhere. No. There were no other recorded cases of this phenomena before. Please don’t tell me I’ve been “gifted” with this ability. I want a refund!  Surely, I had never heard anyone else break wind before. I was the first case in my experience. This was not good. This was mortifying.

So, months went by and I kept that little paranoid gem to myself. Sneakily, I was trying to pull information out of other people to see if it was something common to humans will little success. My speech skills aren’t stellar, and interrogation was never my strong suit but I couldn’t let any of this top secret information out. I would never have a moment’s rest from the little savages that sit next to me for 8 hours a day. After several awkward conversations, I became discouraged. How was I going to cope with this gigantic, red F carved in my chest?!

For a long while, I was able to keep things under wraps, until the mythological tricksters of the school decided to change all that in Mrs. Shadel’s Social Studies class. I remember the subject because the books were so ridiculously thick. How were we ever to get through all of that? Anyway, I was called on to read a passage from the book. This wasn’t possible, since it was stored neatly under my seat on the suspended wire rack. Little did I know I was about to demonstrate to the world my musical “talents.”

I leaned over and put a hand on that brown-paper-bag-covered textbook only to let off a noise that would make a foghorn jealous. Frozen. I couldn’t move. A tear formed in the corner of my eye, as if I watched the ending of He-Man & She-Ra the Movie: Secret of the Sword (shut-UP, I loved that movie ಠ_ಠ). A commotion started with jeers, laughter, chiding, and all sorts of hate directed at me: the easy target. The stooge. The not-good-enough. The reject. The scapegoat. All the noises began swirling in my head and I shut my eyes to black out their faces, until I heard a voice silencing them all.

What was this? A reprieve? Was it over? Can I go back to thinking about social studies now? Not quite.

“All right,” said Mrs. Shadel, “I’m going to count to three and you’re all going to get it out of your system.”

Fuck… it’s a firing squad.

At least the noise was uniform, albeit painful. After about five seconds the teacher cut them off and went back to the lesson. I can’t remember what it was. I was too preoccupied to function. The day was ruined, and I just wanted to go home. There were a few stray insults after that, but the simple minds finally got distracted with something else. I was free to disappear… and forget… until now.

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Testing, Testing, 1… 2… 3…

Most of the last 48 hours have been nothing but blood, sweat, and tears… literally. The summer months are coming to an end which means outdoor repairs are in greater need of being finished. I can’t put them off any longer.

Even though I have acrophobia, I’ve been up on the roof of my attached garage painting window sills which have been left to rot by two decades of delinquent ownership. That upsets me. People upset me frequently, if you hadn’t noticed. I have no idea how that chippy, little drive-through worker escaped with only stone silence from me. After 6 hours of being in the muggy August weather and having my polite order cut off by a terse, disembodied voice, she should be nothing more than a smoldering pile of ash. I think the heat simply sucked the energy right out of me. She’s still a miserable zero though.

I threw myself into a tizzy this morning (shocking, I know), but knew I would end up there. It’s my fault for doing so, but the emotions don’t care about that. They never care about a rational argument; they just exist.

There was a conversation last night among a few of my friends about the MENSA quiz. We arrived at this point by discussing how Hooterville does not know how to serve its more intelligent students. Instead of providing a more comfortable learning atmosphere, it bashes, mashes, and terrorizes students to be of average intelligence (i.e. not sticking out). When my friend arrived at this conclusion, it was like a moment of clarity for me. Even one of my childhood terrors admitted to me recently that I was too smart, and it frightened him.

With last night’s discussion in mind, I stared at the MENSA website for a full five minutes. Part of me wanted to know what was behind door number one, but the other part boiled over with anger and outrage. I hate tests. Not just hate them, I royally hate them. That’s the most I can say without going into a litany of profanity-laced speech. The entire concept of testing has become a disgusting joke to me.

As always I speak for myself, as there are plenty who merely get nervous but don’t truly mind testing. For me this is smitten with righteous indignation. After my internal war was fought, I closed the lid to my laptop and went outside to paint Stonefield. No longer will I prove my worth to others. The time for that has long since past. I don’t even need to prove anything to myself, as I know deep down I can make it happen whatever it may be. I don’t have to be in MENSA or NHS or any other academic circle to demonstrate my intelligence. With my persistence, it will be shown to others. If I’m lucky, it will be within my lifetime.

Stepping on the Toes Stuck Out to Trip Me

Years before I knew of WordPress, I would write reviews of businesses to ease the  frustration of being in the fields. They weren’t intentionally humorous, like Chris Hinton’s “Funny, Outrageous Reviews – Unicorns & Skulls,” but I had been known to take pot shots at places. Whether they deserved it or not is debatable. When you’re a miserable thirty-something that lost your footing in a place much more comfortable than where you entered this world, you tend to be a little bitchy. It also could have been low blood sugar. It’s a toss up.

Unlike most endeavors in my life, I stuck with it for quite some time. I still write reviews every now and then, and fired off a handful tonight. It made me think of all the foul people who reside at such places. To be fair, there are some genuinely interesting people, but I remember the wretched ones more often.

As I said before, I had been known to take pot shots. It wasn’t all that often, but I’m a very deliberate person. If someone cannot decide whether or not I’m insulting them, they can safely give me the benefit of the doubt. I’m very direct about this sort of thing, as there’s often an identifiable reason for it. It could be they’re acting like an imbecile, or they’re being inconsiderate to me. What have you.

Since I know my land well, I knew having a picture of my face out there was lethal. For some reason, people take personal insult to a bad review of an establishment they love. It’s a very defensive place. They must think I hate their freedom. At any rate, I fired up MS Paint and drew a stellar avatar.

When you live in one particular spot for a number of decades, you tend to remember the history. So, when I note I don’t want to patron an establishment due to a murder taking place on its premises, it ruffles feathers. There have been several bars I’ve noted police presence and why I would prefer not to drink at them. I’ve also ripped apart restaurants for being embarrassingly mediocre. In my defense, I always gave suggestions to improve the maladies.

This leads me to recall the worst, yet most awesome, hate I received to date. I had logged on after a month’s absence to find a friend request. Not only was it someone who didn’t care for what I had to say about… whatever he was pissed off about, he had created a specific user account to read “Fuck Nate’s Reviews.” Apparently I didn’t pay enough attention to him, and he decided he wanted to be my friend.

Why bring this up at all? Because in hindsight that is hysterical. There are people out there in life who make it a priority to push you around. Why? Because they lack so much character they want to destroy the people that have it. There seems to be plenty of that around here, and people wonder why I act the way I do.