Wednesday, August 15, 2012

Find Waldo, Lose Friends.

I was THE BEST child in my kindergarten class. I feel like now would be an excellent time to end this post whilst I'm ahead, however I didn't create this blog in order to quit while ahead. I created in order to chronicle the happenings of my life in a exciting and mostly true way. So I will write what I owe the Internet.

I was THE BEST child in my kindergarten class until my best friend found Waldo. At first thought, finding Waldo is pretty impressive. It might would even make me want to personally give my friend a handshake, pat on the back, or possibly even a hug. No probably not a hug. That's just pushing it. But at least a friendly high five. That would be the thought anyway if I wasn't THE BEST (I totally accidentally just typed the breat which autocorrected to the breast. Win) child in my kindergarten class.




I remember Kindergarten like it was fifteen years ago. I was quite possibly also THE CUTEST kid there as well. But that's currently irrelevant...and I'll let you guys decide that anyway.

So I think this picture was actually taken
in the first grade...but regardless I'm cute. And no,
this is not the friend that this post is about. However
I did just learn that I will be attending school with
her this fall.
When I went to the first day of Kindergarten I knew that I had a legacy to uphold. My sister was the very first child to ever make it through the entire school year without losing a smiley face. 

Let me explain something to you. Smiley faces are a big deal for a five year old. Quite possibly one of the biggest deals that there can be. So when a kindergarten teacher (especially one named Mrs. Muddy) decides that creating an entire disciplinary system based around the concept of earning and losing smiley faces is a good idea, it's not. It can mess with a kid. When you start messing around with smiley faces it can totally become the focus of a kid's life. As it apparently did my sisters, and it definitely did mine. 

The moment I earned my very first smiley face for pushing my chair in when I stood up I became addicted. There is just something special about that high you get when you see your kindergarten teacher reach into her desk and pull out that small, golden circle with a smile drawn on and adhere it with sticky tack right next to your name. I had to get more.

It wasn't long before I had found out practically every way to get a smiley face and I started carrying them out every chance I got. In fact if my memory serves me right, I think my teacher ended up putting a "ten smiley face limit" on the class. (on me in particular. I think I was the only smiley hoarder) I was a smiley face earning machine. I was a beast. I was THE BEST kid in my class.

I had a friend in this class named Jidden. Jidden was easily a tie for my best friend with the girl in the picture above. Jidden and I had a common goal. We would be the first to find Waldo on every page of the book. This was a good goal because it took a while to accomplish and kept us motivated. Eventually we were down to the final page though and this mutual goal turned into a bit of a competition. We would push ourselves to be the first person done with our class work in order to be the first to get the Waldo book so that we could have a greater advantage at finding Waldo. I think these might have been the first developing signs of my SuperGenius status.

This is Jidden. Also, turns out our yearbooks didn't
get color until my 8th grade year...

One particular day however, Jidden beat me to it. This was not ok with me because I knew that I was so very close to finding Waldo. I stared him down with everything I could as I finished tracing the alphabet on my paper and went to turn it in. As I walked back toward my desk I made a small detour in Jidden's direction and accidentally nudged the book off his desk and onto the floor. That should teach him. Well, I thought it would anyway. Instead it resulted with a foot being stuck out as I was walking away and me landing on my face.

Mrs. Muddy did not know exactly what was happening but she didn't like it. She immediately told me to return to my seat and said that for the next twenty minutes she was to hear NOBODY talking. I don't know what talking had to do with the fact that Jidden unfairly was using the book I needed in order to find Waldo and sleep in peace but I obliged and sat down and put my head on my desk.

Waldo was simply waiting to be released by me! But Jidden
had the book :(

About five minutes later a conversation took place...

Jidden: *GASP!!* Psssssttt!!!! *whispers* Indi!!! INNNNDDDDIIIII!!!!!!!
Me: *ignores*
Jidden: *still whispering* PPPPPPPSSSSSSSSSSSSTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! INDIIII!!!!! I FOUND HIMMM!!!!!!!
Me: SHHHH!!!!
Jidden: *more whispers* I saaiiiiiidddddd I founnndddd himmmm!!!!!!!!! 
Me: *loud whisper* I said SSSSHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!
Jidden: *still more whispers* Look! He's right hereee!!!!
Me: *yelling and slamming hand on desk* SHUT UPPP!!!!!!!! 
Mrs. Muddy: *also slamming hand on desk* That's it! *walks over and pulls smiley face off my chart* We will NOT talk like that in MY class!!
Shut up is a bad word....

Following this incident with Jidden and Mrs. Muddy, I immediately broke into tears. And not the gentle tears either. The hard-core "everybody-I-just-cared-about-died-in-a-fiery-explosion-caused-by-my-arch-nemesis-sob" kind of cry. It wasn't until Mrs. Muddy threatened to take down another smiley face that I dried up. That was a very low kind of threat. I lost some respect for Mrs. Muddy that day.

The worst part about the whole ordeal was knowing that even if I earned a cabozillion more smiley faces before the year was over, I would still be one short of my potential. And it was all Jidden, Waldo, and Mrs. Muddy's fault. I would get even with them all. I would avenge my smiley face's death. This was not the end.

Illustrations credited to Tom

1 comment:

  1. You forgot to mention that until like middle school you and Jidden weren't friends... You punched him!

    ReplyDelete