A Girl...

Simon Says - "The Goose Egg"

When I was a little kid, I thought that it was really unfair that kids were given so little consideration in the world. True, kid commerce has become a multi-jillion dollar industry, but we must remember that most of that stuff is for the parents, not the kids. But that's not what I'm talking about anyway. What I'm talking about is respect.

The most blatant display of the prejudice against kids, in my humble five-year-old brain, was the low-to-high urinal ratio. In every mens room, there is only one low toilet, and a million high ones. This is an injustice, as short people (kids and dwarves) can only go in the low one, but tall people (everyone else) can go in either the low one or the high ones. This is discrimination, pure and simple, built into the very physical infrastructure of our world.

Another thing that pissed me off is that the voting age was so darn high. I thought, in fourth grade, that I was damn near old enough to vote for the president. My friend David and I even wrote a letter to President Ronnie, with a copy to the speaker of the house, saying that we thought that the voting age should be lowered to twelve years old. Admittedly, I was a bit smarter than the average kid, and when I think about it now, it's probably not such a great idea, mostly because kids would probably just vote how their parents told them to, and those wacky fundamentalist Christians are pumping babies out faster than the intelligencia who actually think beyond what they're told by rich powerful men who quote from scrolls written 2000 years ago by semi-literate desert nomads, but I digress).

And when I was in sixth grade, I was threatened with suspension for circulating a petition to let kids sit wherever they wanted at lunch instead of with their classes. It only makes sense - meal time is social time, and that is when people want to sit with their peeps (I now know that it is illegal to punish a student for petitioning with grievances, but I didn't know it then).

But consider, if you will, the incident of the ice...

Outside the door of Cornell Elementary in Okemos, MI there was a cement walkway that sloped away from the building at about a 10% grade for about 15 feet. No big whoop in the spring or fall, but in the winter, it was the world's greatest ice slide. January recess was made for sliding. We'd start at the top, and get a few steps run in, and slide to the bottom. Now THAT was fun.

One cold January day, some of the 2nd graders were doing something quite daring - they were sliding on their feet, standing up. Their arms were flailing, and they were certainly lacking any real control, but they were sliding on their feet, and it looked like a lot of fun. As a lowly 1st grader, I shouldn't have even tried it, but the allure was too great for me, and so I gave it a shot.

When it was my turn, I took my requisite 3-steps-for-speed, and hit the ice. Before I had gotten halfway across the ice, my feet slipped out from under me, and I hit the ground very hard. I can still feel my teeth rattling in my head from my collision with the ice-covered asphalt. Golly, it hurt. And I cried, as an injured 1st grader is wont to do.

I hit my forehead on the ground when I fell, and I could already feel a big goose egg growing by the time I managed to crawl off the ice and regain my feet. I sniveled and snuffled my way over to the recess lady who had watched the whole thing (can you BELIEVE that they let us do that? 1981 was apparently a pretty cavalier time when it comes to protecting children). With hitching breaths, I told her I was hurt, that I needed to go to the office, and I wanted my mom.

Instead of sending me to the office, here is what she said, paraphrased:

"You shouldn't have been playing on the ice. When you are a grown-up, you'll have to learn to deal with the consequences of your actions, so you might as well start learning that lesson now."

Maybe being treated like a grown-up isn't so great after all.

Fucking recess lady.

Epilogue: My mom hit the roof when I came home with a big Elephant-Man bump on the noggin, and I told her the story. I am sure, from what I know about her, that she called the school and pitched a Shirley MacLaine. I also imagine she fixed me a bowl of Lipton Chicken Noodle soup for me to drink with a straw, and then I probably wrapped up in my blanket and watched Clash of the Titans on HBO for the 416th time. That is not merely random speculation, but a true educated guess.