{back}

Elementary School Stories,
CIA torture experiment edition

Article hard to read? Disable formatting.

I have repressed most of my memories from elementary school. To be honest, I consider it the lowest point in my life so far, which probably just means I've lived a pretty good life. Maybe that is why I am such an optimist? Anyways, back in elementary I remember I would throw up a lot. I don't know why, my parents don't know why, and the doctors don't know why. But I would start crying (which I did a lot) and next thing you know, yikes! Janitor, please. Obviously I grew out of this with puberty but this disorder of sorts impacted my entire life up to middle school. It also impacted my ability to stand up for myself against the injustices of the elementary world. Hard to defend yourself when you can't hold back your tears. As such, the majority of these stories will be about a lie being spread about me, or something avoidable happening to me, and me being unable to stop it or defend myself because I just start crying uncontrollably before I can put my two cents in. Now that I write this out, I realize I was one pathetic elementary schooler. Oh, and I was probably the one kid teachers groaned about having to deal with, with all the puking and such. Sorry about that, teachers. Just kidding! It seems like a lot of them really didn't like teaching young kids. At least I have positive memories of swinging on the tireswing and swingsets, so it's not all doom and gloom.

2nd Grade - Urinalshitter

Second grade was the first year of school in my new home state of West Virginia. Over time, I would call this piece of Appalachia my home, but at the time I was still just the new kid with the funny Pennsylvanian accent. Of course, from my perspective everybody else had the funny accents, but I digress. I guess not everybody appreciated my presence, as one day partway through the year, I was called to the teacher's desk for questioning. A fifth grader had accused me of pulling my pants down and taking a dookie right onto the urinal. Now, to be clear, this is a false statement. Unfortunately, despite being perfectly in the right, the teacher refused to believe me when I told her he was lying. I remember her explicitly stating, "Who am I going to trust? You or the older kid? He said he was certain it was you, why would he lie about that?". Prick. After that, I fell into my crying spell, so to her I looked even guiltier. Afterwards, she asked if she would like if I could talk to him in the office. I said, "Y-yeah...", but strangely she seemed to refuse this request, which she herself offered.

"Oh, but he's in class right now. Wouldn't want to pull him out.", then why ask me in the first place? So basically, this shithead gets to make up a terrible lie about me, and then get away with it scot-free without having to defend his side of the argument, which may I remind you is the accusing side. Imagine if this is how court in the real world worked. Awful! Especially awful on the side of the teacher, who seemed to only want to teach me a lesson, and not the lying bastard. Actually though, she was one of the better teachers at that school, so I'll have to give her some slack here and say maybe she was just too naive and really believed a fifth grader wouldn't lie about something like that, or that he might have just honestly misrembered.

3rd Grade - Tastes like poop

The next story starts in the lunchroom. I was talking to my friend, who I'll call AJ. You see, today at school we were served some awful "Mexican" food, and let me tell you, it sucked. It sucked so much that I told AJ, "This food tastes like poop. I'm eating poop right now (laughter)," To me and AJ, it was a pretty funny quip, and we both moved on to talking about other things. But one girl, who I'll call Lisa, did not seem to find the humor in that joke. I remember hearing her gasp when I said it. She didn't confront me at the time, but I would learn about her actions soon enough. "Zorg, can you come to the councillor's, please?". Uh oh, that's never good. Well, I get to the councillor's, which is actually just a little space tucked away in the back of the library, and she starts the conversation talking about food. "Oh good, she must just want to talk to me." says my little kid brain.

Want to talk to me, she did. Talk about my shit eating habits, of course. She asked me what food I liked, and after I gave a few answers, she said, "So are any of those foods poop?". I said, "No..". I immediately panicked, I mean, what could she be talking about? "So why did you tell kids at lunch that you eat poop? Have you ever touched, licked, or eaten it? Have you ever been fed it at home, maybe as a punishment?" What the fuck, lady? Look, I get that maybe they have to make sure that nothing abusive is happening to any kids at school, but what happens next is unacceptable. Obviously, I reply that I was just kidding, whilst doing my best to hold back crying and making her get any more suspicious of my eating habits. She has the audacity to ask, "What's so funny about telling people you eat poop? That's not very funny, Zorg.". What the hell am I supposed to say? Of course, in retrospect I could've thought to say, "Because I'm a kid, Mrs. Councillor, and kids make potty humor jokes all the time. I was just comparing one thing, the school lunch, to another, poop.". Unfortunately, I did not have the clarity of mind to say that at the time. Anyways, after she asked me how dare I find that funny, I just can't hold it back anymore and start crying. I go to the nearest trash can and next thing I know I'm back in the classroom. I guess she realized it was time to stop playing pretend detective and got me back to class. I remember my teacher telling me she already notified my parents, but my memory of it is hazy so I can't tell you anything else she might have said.

Anyways, as I get home I am fearful of a talking to from my mother, just like the councillor gave to me. "Zorg, how dare you say something like that? Do you understand how much trouble you could get us in?!". After I explained to my mom that I simply told my friend I "eat poop" during lunch and not that I screamed "POOP!" in the middle of class, which was what she misinterpreted from the phone call, she just found it a bit funny. I guess she thought it was as stupid a thing to get upset over as I did. After that, it just turned into a funny little moment with my mom where she explained that, no, I didn't do anything wrong, and yes, everybody makes those sorts of jokes in elementary school. Thanks, mom. At the time, if nobody else had my back, I knew my mom would. <3

4th Grade - Don't touch anything!

This story I am about to tell can only be described as "psychological torture". I am in the fourth grade, and we have a field trip where go out to the Domino's down the road to make personal pan pizzas. It's a fun little experience where we go out and the unfortunate souls working that shift get to show a bunch of little kids the process of making a Domino's pizza. Afterwards, you get to eat your pizza, too! Sounds like a fun time, and nothing could go wrong, right? Well, you might have some ideas for how it could go wrong, but what actually happened is not what you would think. They had one big rule before you could make your pizza there. You had to wash your hands, and you couldn't touch anything or anyone on the way there. Unfortunately for me, I was the very last person to make a pizza that day. See, once you were done making your pizza, you got to sit inside the cramped little customer area of the Domino's. By the time everybody else had gone and got their pizza, the entire floor was a sea of children. You basically had to tiptoe your way through if you wanted to follow the rules. To make it worse, the bathroom was at the very opposite side of the room from the kitchen entrance, so you had to cross this entire sea, or should I say swamp, just to make your pizza.

I was a pretty short kid, and I had trouble extending my legs far enough to reach each of the openings between where the other students and their pizzas were sitting. Here's what would happen: I wash my hands, get out of the bathroom, try and traverse my way as careful as possible through towards the kitchen. Oops! You just touched somebody's shoulder. Oops! You just lightly grazed somebody's back! Oops! You grabbed onto the table to keep your balance! Again and again, I couldn't do it. The worst part, was that every time I messed up, both the teacher and the rest of the kids would bark at me, saying, "Zorg! Go back and wash your hands!", "You touched somebody, go back go back, you can't go to the kitchen, go wash your hands, Zorg!!!". This was an absolute nightmare, and an assault on the senses.

After roughly eight failed attempts, I re-entered into the bathroom once again and broke down. I was probably in that room for ten minutes crying and vomiting into the toilet. I remember a few kids banged on the door and barked, "Zorg, what are you doing in there!! Stop hiding and get your pizza!" To which in a muffled voice I could hear the teacher tell them to "Stop that!". Finally, I got out of there, and mysteriously there was a straight clearing made for me to walk right on into the kitchen. Hm, maybe you could have just done that to start with, you pricks? What made this whole story worse is that it was Domino's, so the pizza wasn't even good.

5th Grade - Daisy Died

For once, this is a story where I actually did something bad! We were reading this book, and as part of it they gave us these worksheet packets. Well, if you cared to flip through them, there was one page which seemed to repeat one big spoiler over and over again- "Daisy died". My little kid brain thought it was a bit humorous that the worksheet itself would act as such a big spoiler. As such, I decided to cut out the words, "Daisy died" from the worksheet and put it right onto the projector screen, which the teacher had left on before the start of recess. It was winter, so recess was held inside that day. In my mind, I was just exemplifying how silly this spoiler was. I was showing how obvious this spoiler was by inconspicuously placing it in the classroom. Afterwards, I didn't think anything of it for the whole of lunch.

But once we got back to the classroom, the fifth grade teachers were mad. They went on a big spiel about how awful it is to spoil stuff, and how the other fifth grade teacher hadn't read the book before and now the big surprise was ruined for her, and all this other stuff. It was a good lesson to teach, sure. Unfortunately, I was too busy freaking out over the consequences of my actions and vomiting into the trash can in the back of class. It didn't help that I overheard her saying there was gonna be a group punishment "unless the one who did it speaks up and confesses.". You know, she never did actually make anybody confess or do a group punishment. I sure do wonder why, hmm. I never got in any trouble for that one, I guess they felt I had already had enough torture throughout the rest of my elementary school experience, no need to put him through any more, even if it's justified this time.

Unfortunately, a certain fellow student did not feel the same way. This student, who I will refer to as Gunner, would often nag me throughout the rest of the year about "did you write Daisy died," and "why did you write that Daisy died??". He'd also often nag me about my vomiting habit, and seemed to not understand the concept of not asking rude questions. Last I heard, he sent every girl on his snapchat a picture of his weinerschnitzel, no caption. Well, this culminated in him telling my grandmother at the end of the school's event day, basically a day where you could bring a parent and walk around the school and play games with them, all about what happened that day. As we were leaving, I had just walked into the car and buckled right into my seat, but he saw my grandma and stopped her to tell her about what had happened. I know that's what he was talking about because the entire way back home she was asking me, "now you promise you never ever would reveal or ruin something for others, young man?" and basically interrogating me on what he presumably said. Way to hold a grudge, Gunner.

Conclusion

Gosh, that felt a bit good to finally let out. Writing can really be a good stress reliever. Although, it has made me realize how much of a loser I must have been in the eyes of the other students. Thankfully, after COVID-19 cut middle school a bit short, I got into high school and could basically have a fresh start. During the lockdown, I lost my overemotional habits such as constant crying and vomiting, thank God. Once I got into high school, it was like a total 180 from before. It seemed like I had grown into some sort of "celebrity" (as my friend AJ calls it) my freshman year, maybe because of my short stature and eccentric behaviors? Well anyways, today I would consider myself "popular" but not in a conventional way. But also, somehow, not in a way where I feel people secretly dislike me or are just making fun of me. The amount of time people have greeted me out in the wild or in the hallways using my name, and I don't even know who they are, is more than I can count. Today, I consider going to school and hanging out with everybdoy there to be some of the highlights of my day, and I am so glad that the reverse situation from elementary school is over. The teachers are better, too. I'm one of those people who actually likes going to school. Maybe sometime or the other I'll write an article about my present-day academic plans.