Recollection

My last entry, I spoke about how Asians are fine with me and this reminded me of something from my childhood. Mom, you know exactly what I am going to talk about, I just know it.

My education started at Good Luck Pre-School in Lanham, MD. I loved it. I loved the crafts, snack time, the field trips, anything that we did, I loved it. I especially loved my teacher, who was this older woman who adored me, and seriously what’s not to adore? I was a cutie. Her name is escaping me at this time, which makes me sad because I could name all of my other teachers. What was that you don’t believe me??? You want me to prove it? Fine. I will. Kindergarten – Mrs. Shiner, 1st- Mrs. Jesse, 2nd – Mrs. McCaffery (who was the only teach I ever had who smoked, she smelled like it and had a raspy voice, but she liked me because I was a good speller), 3rd – Mrs. Kugler, 4th – Mrs. Price, 5th – Mrs. Rosen, 6th – started out being Mrs. Maroney but she left and Mrs. Tabot took her place and then after that we had a bunch of different teachers but homeroom in 7th was Mrs. Stefan, 8th was Mrs. Pons, 9th – Mrs. Austin, 10th – shoot, did I have homeroom in 10th?, 11th – Mr. Dutrow for band. And I didn’t have a twelfth grade because I was too cool for it and went to college instead.

That was fun. So, pre-school. Probably a couple of months into my pre-school career, I stopped loving it. I didn’t want to go even though I knew I had to, I would ask to stay home, get quiet and cry, and have my mom walk me in daily and my mom just didn’t understand it at all. I didn’t tell her why I stopped loving it until 7th grade. But I won’t make you wait that long, I’ll tell you now.

I had an obsession with 2 little girls in my class. Why? Because they were different from me. I called them the girls with the “pushed in faces” and I thought that they were the most beautiful things ever. I loved their shiny black hair, and their “tan” as I used to call it. The one girl on Halloween for our Halloween parade dressed up as a princess in this really extravagant pink gown, I loved it and wanted it and I can remember exactly what it looked like to this day. I had dressed up like a butterfly and while I loved my homemade costume, I really loved that pink dress. Anyway, all I wanted was to be their friend. That is all I wanted. But anytime I tried to talk to them, I would get slapped in the face by the owner of the pink dress. Let that one soak in. I got slapped in the face everyday until one day I stopped trying and decided I hated pre-school and never wanted to go back. I never told the teacher nor did the teacher ever see them do it but it happened, for weeks.

So, now, while I have nothing against people of the Asian culture, I have no Asian friends, and maybe I never let myself have them because of slap me in the face daily girl.