September 27th, 2005
Being a Wallflower Has Its Perks
I just got back from a whirlwind tour through western Virginia. The main purpose for the trip was my future brother-in-law James’ 13th birthday. Steph’s mom asked me if I would draw caricatures of the kids during the party (something I used to do in college to make money).
I was a little hesitant about doing this because, well, age 13 is when kids start to get mean. I don’t think they even mean to be mean, something just happens to them at that age. If they don’t think your drawing looks enough like them or is funny enough, they will tell you so. Trust me.
Also, James seems to be “popular” and I think I’m still intimidated by “popular” kids. Probably because I was the kid that the popular kids harassed. If I went to James’ middle school, I doubt if I would not have been invited to his party. And rightly so…I was a mess. I had no sense of the social stratification; I was always trying to hang out with the same people I did in elementary school, even though they were now several echelons above me.
While I thought everyone was still trying to do well on tests and win the teacher’s approval, it turned out these things had become undesirable years ago, and all that mattered now was sports.
Speaking of which, I guess I was absent on that day when they gathered all the boys in the gym and explained, in detail, all the rules to every sport, from kickball to croquet. (Something like this must have gone down, because all the other boys just knew the rules to every game we played. Our P.E. teachers certainly never took the time to explain them before we started.) So I had to make it look like I knew what I was doing, and pray that the ball wouldn’t come to me…. It always did. And I’d take it and run as fast as I could all the way down the field, to the endzone. Sometimes I’d make it. At which point I’d turn around triumphantly, to find my teammates ready to beat me to a pulp, because I had run the wrong way…and because we were playing street-hockey.
From this starting point, I had to slowly and deliberately work my way up, to “wallflower” status. I made it there about halfway through eighth grade, then I hung on for dear life ’til I made it through high school.
Anyway, back to the party. All the kids I drew were appreciative and nice to me and I had a great time. (Who knows? I may become “popular,” yet.)
There was a second reason for the trip to Virginia, though, which was much less-fun. I had to go to a day-long “Defensive Driving Clinic” to get rid of the ticket I got up there a few months ago. It was an interesting crowd. Most of my classmates were there because their license had been taken away and they were trying to get them back. There were several DUIs in the group. Given that most of them had been incarcerated before, this class was the closest I’ve ever come to being in “the slammer.” At the beginning the instructor had us go around the room and say why we were in the class (you know, the old “what are you in for?” routine). When it was my turn to share, I felt pretty lame. All I had was a speeding ticket. Most of the people in the room had bigger problems.
My only salvation was a chubby, pale high school senior, who must have grown up even better off than I did. Also, I’ll go ahead and use a sweeping generalization to describe his personality, and say that, when he goes to college (which he definitely will), he is going to major in theater. Let’s call this guy “Skippy.”
It was painfully obvious that Skippy was a sheltered child. He had a lot of dumb questions, and everything he wanted to ask immediately came tumbling out of this mouth. For example, we watched a very, very dated instructional video where a cop pulls over a guy with a perm for drunk-driving. They briefly showed what happens next: the cop takes him to the station, sits him down in a small, empty room, and — even though the drunk guy is being cooperative and calm — handcuffs him to a big metal ring on the wall while reading him his rights.
Skippy could not believe this: “Do they really handcuff you to the wall like that!?!” he said.
If we’d been on TV you would have heard the sound of a record-scratch as all the other people in the room, who (it was now quite clear) had either been to jail themselves or at least had to bail someone out at some point, paused to stare at him with “are you for real?” expressions.
Honestly I was thinking the same thing. I had no idea you got handcuffed to big metal rings on the wall when they arrested you. But I knew better than to say anything. Those years of spirit-crushing torture and ridicule back in school had taught me to hold my tongue. I was going to be ok. But Skippy…he was going to be someone’s bitch before the day was over.
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