FatKidsLie

When I was in first grade i was super smart. I got to sit at the head of the class, and when all the other turdlings couldn’t answer the questions it was my fat ass that got called up to the blackboard. This caused jelousy from some of the other students. Like ClairBeast.

ClairBeast’s real name is not too important, but suffice it to say I will hold a grudge against her for the rest of my life. I’ve been holding it since 1987, so .. 23 years and counting.

One day, after answering a question on the blackboard, I go to sit down in my chair and… it’s not there. Now, before I sat down I did the standard check of “is there a chair here? Y/N”. It passed the test, so I proceeded to sit down, when ClairBeast pulled the chair out from under me, causing me to smash my face on my desk (which was made of enameled ceramics, a standard desktop material at the time).

I was gushing blood out of a hole in my cheek that was caused by a tooth popping through. Teacher, a 30 year old drunken whore according to my mother, told me to go rinse it out at the fountain. The fountain with the high lead content.

Eventually my mom got called, ran from work (3 blocks away) and got me to the hospital. Where the doctor decided that it was a case of child abuse and called the police. Who, as I’m being operated on by a recent medical school graduate from the college of Banglore Provence, decide to interrogate my mother about how often she hits me, why she hit me so hard and what she used to hit me with this time.

Meanwhile I’ve got a sheet over my head, don’t know what’s going on, and the doctor’s telling me to “Quit squirming, you little fucktard”. Or at least that’s how I remember it.

At any rate, I hate doctors, can’t stand dental work and want to punch ClairBeast in the throat. 23 years later.

I found her on Facebook. I wanna befriend her and then ask her if she remembers pulling the chair out from under me.

I don’t know why I thought of this incident, since it happened like, 13 years ago and I haven’t thought of it since. I’m sure that the statute of limitations has expired on this since it was just stupid…

When I was in highschool I got to take bowling instead of gym since I had a huge problem with group showers and changing in front of other people. Oddly enough I have little to no problem with public nudity, just the whole “all of us guys are showering together and parading around with our dicks out” thing kinda skeves me out a little. I’m all for gays being allowed to practice homosex all they want but even I have limits to what I’m comfortable experiencing.

I’d never make it in prison.

And like the man said “School is prison“… gymclass doubly so.

So in order to not be locked a room of assorted dicks I took bowling. It only met a couple times a week, so I got to get out early the other three days. Which was great for me because that meant I could drink 40z and smoke up at the train station or in my friend’s garage. It further proves that bowling is the slacker’s golf.

One day, after a particularly successful couple frames, I decided to get a Milkyway bar from the vending machine. I put in my 50c. I pushed E6 (which is always where you get a Milkyway bar), the screw turned and turned and turned and stoped. With my Milkyway bar still stuck in there.

Bastards. I stomped back and forth. Walked to Karen and Bill and said “Motherfucking machine took my money” Bill responded with “Take your revenge…” and handed me a 12lb green tigerseye bowling ball. WIth a chip in it. I looked at Karen, since she was a fairly attractive girl with GIANT boobs and I was 16 I had to do what she said. So I followed her advice when she said “Yes. Do it. It is the ONLY way…”.

I picked up the bowling ball and went over to the vending machine with Bill and Karen following and … the door was plexiglass. Which is a bitch and a half to break with a bowling ball lemmetellsya.

Now infuriated I grab the machine and start shaking it like a Polaroid picture or a baby under the care of a British nany or a fat chick on a bus or whatever shaking thing you can think of. Use your imagination. It won’t hurt.

The employees at the bowling alley as well as the teacher just stared in wonder and amazement as I flipped that vending machine over onto its front, and then upside down and back unseating all the snackfoods and dropping them to the bottom for easy access for all the miscreants in the class. I simply took my Milkeyway bar, and a couple baggies of combos (as payback for making me flip over the machine) and went back to bowling.

Milkeyways are that good.

When I was in 4th grade I, along with a few of the more famous trouble-makers in my class made a substitute teacher cry. I also believe that she decided to quit teaching and re-evaluate her career path. I don’t know that the second part ACTUALLY happened, but I like to believe it did.

Mrs. Rosenberg was out one day for a batmitzvah for one of her cats and the school pulled a newly graduated girl as the substitute. I remember thinking that she was young… looked like my friend’s sister (who I had a 4th grade fatboy crush on). She was the first girl I’d ever seen with a nose-ring. She was one of those newwave discopunks that became teachers so they could be “cool” teachers like Welcome Back Kotter, but are really pathetic and useless like Gabe Kaplan.

And school is prison. If you show any weakness you’re gonna be somebody’s bitch. She became our collective bitch.

It started innocently enough too. You know that organized book-drop prank? Where everyone drops a textbook all at the same time? We weren’t THAT well organized. We kept dropping books, pencils, threw rulers at the blackboard. All the normal annoying crap that kids do. While this annoyed her she’d only stare at us and ask us how she could help us “be good little boys and girls”.

So John Walters told her how: “YOU CAN SUCK MY NUTS!!!” which led to applause from the students in the back row. You see, my class was something like the classroom scene from The Forbidden Zone. Complete with gunfights and sing-alongs. Mrs Rosenberg knew how to handle us. But this girl? No such luck!

If she had been more like my sister, Suzan (“… yer cruizin’ fer a bruisin…”), she’d’ve been alright. But alas, the smell of fear was in the water. And our 9-year-old brains turned that into a signal to attack:

It started with a steady stream of bathroom passes. We’d all go, get the pass, make noise going through the door, make noise coming back through the door, slam the pass down… Repeat. I think I went to the bathroom 3 times?

Then when asked to do a math problem on the blackboard, Sean Haggarty decided that 45÷9= a picture of a giant penis and balls. with a smiley face on the balls. He was trying to draw a silly poofy mushtash on it, but she had him return to his seat before he was done.

During our morning “reading time”, Michael DeSantos decided that he was going to get naked. Our sub tried using psychology on him by saying that she’s not impressed by bad behavior and that his being naked was nothing that she hadn’t seen before. His response? “Have you seen this before?” and he pissed an arc across his desk. All while holding a copy of his book.

He got to go home for that. Our assistant principal put us all on warning. Now, we liked this guy. So we told him that we’d be good. We didn’t want him to have to watch us or anything. And we were good, until lunch.

Lunch that day consisted of burgers and tater-tots. Greasy, slimy, cold, undercooked, expired tater-tots. The kind that only grade-school cafeterias can get away with serving.

My friend, Tim, and I piled everyone’s tots on our trays. Mixed in some Ketsup. FILLED our mouths with the grossness. Sat on either side of the substitute. And in unison spit the tots/ketsup grossness onto the table. Our classmates approved.

I think that was the final straw. She burst out into tears, grabbed all her hippy stuff and ran out of the building.

FINALLY! We had won!

Our assistant principal took over the class for the rest of the day. For the life of me, I don’t know why we didn’t get calls home about this. Maybe because it was the entire class? Maybe because he secretly hated hippies or new-wave discopunks? Or whatever the crap she was?

I don’t know. All I know is that we never saw her again. I kind of wonder what happened to her, but not really.

It was 1986. Ronald Regan was president. The Smurfs were all over the place. I was 6.

I was at Suzan’s (as in who you’re cruizin’ for a bruzin’ from… AKA my big sister) house while my mom and our dad (Suzan’s my paternal half sister and is like.. 30 years older than me) drank coffee on a Saturday morning. This was back in the golden days of Saturday Morning Cartoons, where you could wake up at 6am, get a bowl of sugar cerial, sit down in front of the TV and be babysat for 6 hours by Smurfs, Mon-Chi-Chis and every other sick cartoon that was awesome.

My niece (who is a year and a day older than me) and I were watching The Smurfs and drawing robots and dinosaurs and flowers and fairies etc in the living room. Hopped up on OJ and half a box of Cap’n Crunch, I went and hid behind the couch, took off my pants, folded them and took a blue magic marker to my wiener, jumped out in front of the TV and screamed “I’M A SMURF!!! LA LA LALALALA… LA LALA LA LAAAA (AKA the SMURF SONG)”

This freaked out my niece so much that she couldn’t scream. I then ran into the kitchen to show my parents and sister who didn’t have a sense of humor for that sort of crap. They all took turns beating my 6 year old ass.

The magic marker didn’t come off with regular soap and water, so my mom made me use AJAX. out in the driveway. So the whole world could see.

My neighborhood has a superhero. Or heroine. Depending on your/its definitions and declarations.

I know that the previous paragraph is more than a little confusing but bear with me…

Lately my neighborhood has had a protector. Just like Artie, the strongest man in the world. Only slightly more mutant and also transsexual.

This is a transvestite. Pre-op. Usually with a couple days worth of stubble, wearing hot-pink lipstick, smoking a giant Philly Blunt cigar down to the nub. Looks like a tranny version of Clint Eastwood meets Iggy Pop at a Revlon convention. And goes by the name… “Shaquana”.

Shaquana’s been out on patrol, sitting on the corner bench, or in front of the coffee shop, with a notebook jotting down observations and making sure that the whole block is safe.

Like our own personal superhero.

The police have branded Shaquana as a domestic terrorist. Which is unfortunate since she is only trying to make the world a better place.

The other morning Shaquana was in full effect. There were some kids waiting for the schoolbus acting like roughnecks. Banging street signs, and gates and throwing rocks into traffic. Shaquana leaped into action! She took a Supersoaker and sprayed down those kids. I don’t know what was in the Supersoaker buuuut…. the police were called in and went searching for her.

Then there was the time when she was in a dumpster and some hipster kids came out of the bar on the corner and one started to take a leak right there in the middle of the alleyway! She jumped out with her flashlight and made him stop! And piss down the leg of his pants. For sanitary reasons. She then sprayed them with a Supersoaker full of soapy water. And ran off.

Nobody can catch her. She can run fast. And has cloaking powers. Kind of like a cross between the Shadow and Batman. But mixed with some classy style.

Sometimes Shaquana hangs out in the alleyway between the wine/cheese shop and the hipster cafe. Searching for clues. In the garbage. She tried to pay for a cup of coffee with old pork lomein. Because on her planet that is currency. But not here.

Don’t blame her for all the weirdness surrounding her. Because it is REALLY hard to understand the norms and taboos of other cultures that live on your own planet let alone a backwater planet in the boondocks of the outer rim of the galaxy. There’s a learning curve. Like if I were to go into South America and try to make arrowheads. Sure, I can program a computer to sort through gene types looking for a way to cross breed a frog and a chicken but damned if i can bash two rocks together to get something useful.

And that’s what our highest level of technology is to the Purple Space Dragons (Shaquana’s true form). Banging rocks together and hoping for the best.