It’s Not Like I Went All Stephen King’s “Carrie” On Her

Last week I was thinking about something that happened in second grade. I keep having all these childhood memories pop up. Perhaps it’s a combination of my age, having a blog, and having school age kids that has caused certain memories to surface.

In the spring of second grade I was on the school bus in the morning and I was in the back with several classmates. I was wearing a culottes romper type of outfit with a long zipper in the front. The zipper was white and had a ring shape the size of a nickel you’d pull to zip it up. I wasn’t wearing anything underneath.

There was a girl in my class who was really popular and the elderly teacher’s pet. I was standing on the bus, as were several others, and she pulled my zipper down to my mid-section. I may have had a seven year old body, but all 51 pounds of me were pissed off. I was so embarrassed. Boys were there and everyone laughed.

In the classroom we had been growing our own Styrofoam cup of wheat grass seed for a few weeks. This mean-girl-in-the-making happened to have her grass that had grown the fullest and tallest. A ledge in the classroom had all of our cups lined up like this:

I can’t remember if it was the same day she pulled my zipper down or not, but it was very close to that day that I retaliated. It must have been a recess or bathroom break that I was able to get into the classroom alone. I took the teacher’s scissors, went over to this girl’s grass, and Whoosh—I gave that grass a blunt cut and lopped off about 3 inches. And then went on my way back to wherever I was supposed to be.

Well, this old teacher was horrified along with meany girl when the class saw what had been done. Of course no one confessed. And no one ever asked me and no one ever knew. The teacher assumed it was someone who was jealous of her growing grass.

So a couple nights ago at dinner I shared this story with my Hubs and the boys. The boys were kind of shocked but they laughed. And I saw my Hubs staring at me and kind of joking about “Wow, this is a side of you I never knew”. And I’m all like, “Bwaaaahaaahaaa. What!?! She deserved it!” (plus it's not like I ripped the grass out. It will still grow. Gosh). And he actually asked if she was just playing around during the zipper situation and I vehemently described how I had Nothing on underneath even though just my sternum showed I was pissed. And I reminded him of the fact that although I was seven years old and in second grade, I had once again started a new school in a new state (Texas) a couple months prior, which made it my FOURTH school in my life (Calif, then FL, then Calif, then Texas and BTW back to Calif for 5th school) and not to mention once having a horrible experience in the spring of first grade.

And then my Hubs said, “Well as a teacher I have a problem with that behavior even though you had a hard time, that was very mean to her.” Can you believe this? So then I am all, “Well as my husband you have to understand where I was coming from, and guess what—there is not one ounce of regret. None!” And then we were all laughing at the kids each trying to be a comedian such as, "You should have said 'uh, uh oh no you dih-INT with the fingers snapping in a Z formation" and I said it wasn’t like I hurt her like in the movie Carrie for goodness sakes. Of course telling a bus driver or a teacher immediately would have been best. But I was the new outcast and I'm telling you these teachers were sooo biased.

Later that evening he found me in my closet rifling through a box of photos and I found the class picture. For all the schools I went to, it is amazing that I have these photos. I actually had a hard time identifying the mean girl, but then it came back to me. BTW, it was Hunters Creek Elementary in Houston, TX (Spring Branch School District).

I will be providing an update because I know he will mention this to all the women he works with. And I know the women will be behind me. Like that time years ago he got all crabby because I had several bottles of shampoo and conditioner in the shower (this was before kids) and he asked his coworkers how many items they had in the shower. He came home admitting that my pile of shower goodies was much smaller than others'.

I can’t think of any other time I needed revenge like that. Who’s with me? Or who was I too mean to the mean girl?