Why I Oughtta

Today was the grand Ekrobi moving day. We picked up and moved all her stuff from Alexandria to Mt. Pleasant. After we finished moving the first round of stuff, we stood in front of the apartment complex and chatted. I can't remember the specific context, but I referred to one of my ineptitudes and indicated that I wasn't GT.

No one knew who that was, besides the other person in the group who actually works for Fairfax County Public Schools. GT means Gifted/Talented and was used to distinguish the special from the ordinary in elementary school.

In fact, I was not GT. And I was bitter about it. In second grade, they began taking the GT kids out once a week to a trailer behind the school. We were never privvy to what went on in the trailers, but I can only assume that spoons were distributed and the children spent the two hours concentrating in order to bend them. I remember that the whole thing seemed sinister — but I was mainly just jealous that the kids got to get out of class, leaving the regular kids to contine tasting various acrylic paints and pastes.

All labelled non-toxic for kids just like us.

My burgeoning competitive nature was once again tested when my teacher, a stern German woman (is there any other kind?), divided us up into reading groups. Mrs. W was a mean teacher. Here are the things I remembered about her:

1. She had at least one grown daughter. I thought that was weird. Because if she hated children so much, why would she want one of her own.
2. She had a Weekly Folder system for discipline. If you did something bad, you got a checkmark. If you did something kind of bad, you'd get two checkmarks. Three checkmarks were grievous offences that resulted in having to sit out at recess. If you went the whole month with no checkmarks, you got free ice cream from the lunch lady. I managed to get a three checkmark-worthy offence once a month with stunning regularity. I'd obssess over my behavior for weeks and then fuck it up in a foolish moment of error. This made me resentful of all of the well-behaved children.
3. One time Mrs. W had her sunglasses on top of her fluffy “this is what it sounds like when doves cry” hairdo. She wore her regular seeing glasses on her face. At this point, one of the children called her “six eyes.” I thought this showed wit beyond the youngster's years. Mrs. W failed to see the humor.

There were three reading groups in my class: one for the advanced kids, one for the regular kids and one for the slower kids. The reading group names were, respectively, The Puppies, The Kittens and The Redskins. You see, we were allowed to choose our own group names at the beginning of the year and the system went that all of the members of that group got one suggestion and the winning name was drawn out of a hat. People-pleaser that I was, I figured everyone's suggestion would be covered if we named our reading group The World. And that was my contribution. Sadly, things didn't work out.

As you might suspect, I detested The Puppies. Not only was the name better (The Kittens? Please! Cats are for girls.), but I didn't enjoy the fact that I was with the proletariat of elementary literature. I was destined for greater things, and I felt a twinge of anger every time The Puppies were called over to the reading table.

I did take solace, however, that I wasn't a Redskin. Whereas the Puppies and Kittens composed about 10 or 15 kids each, the Redskins had only two members: a raspy-voiced, skinny kid named Matt and a girl with unfortunately cut blonde hair named Tammy. Thus began my life-long habit of coping with my inadequacies by comparing myself to the disadvantaged.