How I Love That I Was Bad

Okay, like every other lame-o in the universe, I am making New Year's Resolutions. The List is Long.
The Longer the List, the Less Likely they will happen. So I'm stopping now. I'll do something that will improve me: let's just leave it at that.

Now to the Fun Part: one of the tacky things I have done.

One day my mom shipped all my old report cards, etc, for me to keep. I looked them over before I tossed them to the winds. Nope, not a straight A student. Not disruptive. Just too prone to looking out the window.

I guess now they would call it ADD. Personally, I think the deficit was on the opposite side: they didn't give me enough to pay attention to. In second grade, I started reasoning out theological arguments to dispute nun statements about who went to heaven and why. Silently. In third grade, I distinctly was dubious over the now-defunct biological theory of Protoplasm. How did it reconcile with Atoms? I couldn't make it work. And thinking through these things takes time, you know, while class marches on.

Introducing Mrs. Grim:
I was five, maybe four. We were doing some book page "One is not like the other". I was supposed to circle the unlike. Okay. But we had to wait so long for the next thing. I drew all over the book while I was waiting.

"Which one of these was circled?" Mrs. Grim was upset again. It was obvious to me, but I pointed to the appropriate figure: a top, as opposed to a ball, a world, and something else that was round.

"You wait here after class," she ordered. Okay.

At day's end, the woman streaked out of the classroom and ran to the curb, looking for my mother. She grabbed my mom by the shoulders, shaking her and yelling. "Your child does not pay attention!!" Meanwhile, out of assault range, I waited (again) in the classroom. Swear I didn't light any fires, pull out any toys, or steal my teacher's lunch money.

On the way  home, my Mom said, "Ann, you really need to pay attention in class."
"Okay." I distinctly remember looking out the car window. Green grass and stuff.

Flash forward: the Christmas Pageant!! We were going to be every animal. I wanted to be a deer, but no: Mrs. Grim determined I would be one of the cows. I was mortified. I had to make a mask for myself in a species I did not want to be, and practice cow steps. Just torture.

Maybe that was the year I learned I was not the center of the universe. Nah. Socialization takes longer than that.

The pageant was on a stage with light bulbs along the edges. Mrs. Grim told me not to step on the lights. I tried not to, but you know: little legs, adult stairs. [Crunch.] She rolled her eyes. Her mouth was a flat line.

I was determined to show her I was special to somebody.

"My mother dressed me in my lacy pants," I informed her, and mooned her, right on the stage, to a full house.

I got applause, mind you! Perhaps that was the defining moment of the year--
So, my New Year's Resolution: this Rebel is going to be BAD  . . . . it's in my constitution . . . .