List Tuesday: I Told A Story!

I got this idea from Ms. dot Comma today. The idea is to pick three ages and tell an anecdote from that time in your life. I didn't choose the same ages as her, but some are pretty close. So, all you armchair psychologists out there, your job is to tell me what these stories say about me. I didn't really put any thought into choosing them. In my mind they aren't related, they are just snapshots of a time in my life. But what do they tell you?

If they tell you something about me that I don't want to hear, you're fired.

1. 5th Grade: Age 10-11
   My 5th grade teacher was one of those self-help positivists. You know the ones, always telling you that you are good enough, smart enough, and, doggonit, people like you! In keeping with this, one of the things she had us, her students, do every day, before going outside for our 25 minute lunch-time recess to play “football,” was stand in front of a full-length mirror, look our reflection directly in the eyes and say “I love you, you are very special.” I hated doing this with a fire that few other things have ever been able to kindle. I hated it so much that I would hide in the bathroom until everyone else was finished. Then I would sneak out and go to the library where I “worked” re-shelving books in the biography section. Whenever I did get forced to look myself in the eye (less than 15% of the time probably) I would either rush through it or say it sarcastically. I kept this up for a whole year.




2. 10th Grade: Age 16
   My sophomore year of high school brought with it a very strange Honors English teacher, one Mr. Johnson. When we studied poetry, he gave us song lyrics by Jim Morrison. When we studied Shakespeare we rushed through it. But this is superfluous to my story. Towards the end of the year, each of us was required to read a book and give a brief presentation on another culture, an ambiguous and ill-defined assignment if ever there was one. So, being the smarter-than-thou 16-year-old that I was, I took advantage of the ambiguity and chose a fictional culture, that of George Orwell’s 1984. When it came time for me to give my presentation, I decided I would introduce the subject by bringing in sugary chocolate chip cookies, because, you see, in the culture of 1984 they were not allowed to eat actual sugar. I pretended to have brought the cookies to provide an example of what we take for granted in our culture, but honestly, I brought them in to distract the class and Mr. Johnson during my brief and ill-planned presentation.
   
   I got an A. My friend, whose creativity and artistic ability and guitar playing skills I have been jealous of since the 4th grade, came in costume with painstakingly hand-drawn posters illustrating the Viking tradition of the Berserker. Many hours were spent in the making of his props. He did not get an A.




3. Age 20: It was summer. I had just finished my second year of college and was living, one last time, at my parents’ house. I would get married at the very end of that summer, at age 20, as strange and crazy at that seems now. For the third year in a row, I spent most of my waking hours in late June and all of July driving a “dumper” forklift at a cherry processing plant. It was my job to transfer the usually small and gross cherries from the growers’ bins into our own bins for processing. As a dumper, the banes of my existence were plastic half-bins that some of the Wenatchee growers used. On average, it took three “half-bins” to fill one of our regular sized bins. The plastic was a problem because its reduced coefficient of friction as compared to the typically-used wood caused them to occasionally fly from the forks, thus spilling several hundred pounds of cherries onto the ground. These cherries were not wasted, mind you, but it slowed down the process greatly if you had to stop and shovel them back into the bin.
   
   One hot, slow afternoon, we were all sitting around after lunch, all of the pressing work done, when the Wenatchee truck pulled up to be unloaded. It was completely full of half-bins. My work set out for me, I set out upon my work. It was a delicate balance between not going too fast and causing spills and going fast enough to keep the other folks in cherries to pump chemicals onto. The way the cookie finally crumbled was that I could not keep up. No matter how fast I drove, no matter how accurately and cleanly I dumped, I could not keep up with the pace at which the pad workers were running. It was the first time this had happened to me, and I started to get frustrated. Finally, when some of them came over to “help” me by jokingly attempting to lift the half-bins themselves and dump them or shovel cherries directly from the half-bins, I started to lose it. My dad, the foreman of the crew I guess, came over to talk to me. I don’t remember exactly what he said. What I heard was that I needed to work faster. Looking back, I doubt that he said that. But I heard what I heard, so I looked at him and shouted, “Well then, you fucking do it,” and jumped off the forklift and walked away. He finished the job and I came back a few minutes later to work on the other stuff. I don’t think we ever really talked about it. It’s the only time I’ve ever sworn at him. It’s the only time I’ve ever sworn at anyone out of anger.