1988

I’ve never been one to march to anyone else’s drummer. I didn’t follow trends. I wasn’t part of the “in” crowd. I did things my own way and was quite content. Nobody pushed me to do drugs. Ok, there was that one time, but that’s a story I’ll write later. (Spoiler: I didn’t do it.) Last night, I was thinking about my seventh grade year for a few reasons. Boring ones, I assure you. But there were a few highlights from seventh/eighth grade I thought I’d like to share.

First of all, I was alone my seventh grade year. Separately, all three of my best friends had moved away at the end of sixth grade. Living right next to a military base, we were used to seeing people come and go every year. However, only one of those three friends was military. Anyway, they were all gone, so I was left to fend for myself the next year. You may not know this about me, but I’m rather anti-social. (Ha, like that’s a shock.) I’m not a joiner and I don’t make friends lightly.

One major event during my seventh grade year was that I fell from one of the chin-up bars. I’d always been one of the tallest in my class, so I was on the tall chin-up bar. I somehow let go and fell straight down. Landed on my tailbone. It was the least fun I’d ever had on a playground. I spent a good deal of the next few weeks in the nurse’s office. Lots of times I had to be picked up early from school. I was a real pain in my mom’s rear, who had to take off from work every time I called to come get me because I couldn’t sit in those hard desks, I’m sure.
I’ve said I knew I was different from other kids. I didn’t know any other kid who liked going to the office supply store. I loved it. I could spend hours in there. Smelling the…whatever. Old dust do you think? Once, I spent my hard-earned allowance on a roll of tickets. What use did I have for tickets? None, whatsoever. But I was more interested in them than candy. So my next big purchase from the office supply store was a briefcase. Again, what use did I have for it? None.

I carried it with me everywhere. Eventually, I'd take it to school filled with candy I'd bought at the neighborhood convenience store to sell at school. That ended abruptly one day. I was out on the front lawn before school started, doing my thing. A few kids came around. Then a few more. Suddenly I looked up and there was a huge crowd. Like you'd see around a fight. People started pushing and stuff, and I got more than a little scared. So I decided to close up shop. Somebody hocked a lugie in my hair from behind me. I was beyond done. And was kinda getting concerned about getting caught selling candy with all the attention I was drawing.

I went back to just being the weird girl with a briefcase. And then my mom came home with some wallpaper sample books someone had given her. I decided to jazz up my plain brown briefcase. I taped pieces of wallpaper I'd cut out of the books to the front of my briefcase. Interesting southwestern pattern and shapes. They did not go with the brown. But then, neither did the wallpaper, really.

So yeah, that was me. And while the wallpapered briefcase was the strangest thing I did, it wasn't by much. I remember another purse I carried that year was lime green. The only reason I'm sure it was the same time-frame is that I'd caught one of the handles on the doorknob when I was walking out of the library one day. It was hooked over my arm, under my books and I fell. Right on my bruised tailbone. Not my finest day.