Saved by the bell

I was thinking about this show this morning because the song was stuck in my head. (To make a long story short, Andrew gave me his old phone to use to replace my phone that Leira decided to eat. His old ring tone is the saved by the bell theme...hence why it has been stuck in my head for the past 2 days.) One of the lines being "If I slump in my chair, then she won't know that I'm there" (yes! I know all the lyrics...jealous?) made me think about when I was in 5th grade.

Our teacher handed out individual copies of "Reader's Digest" to all of the students and we were asked to read the story portrayed in a certain section of the magazine...I forget which section that was. We were given a certain amount of time and then were told that we would have to give a short synopsis on what we had just read. The reading part I wasn't so worried about, but I hated the idea of talking in front of my fellow classmates.

Oh well, I thought to myself, it's a few minutes out of my life and then it will be over. I glanced down to see the title of the story I was about to read....and saw that dreaded word....SEX.

Oh God.

I spent the majority of our given time, trying to think of what I was supposed to say when it was my turn. I never even said this word out loud and I was blushing even thinking about the word alone. All I could find myself thinking about was when my parents sat me down to have "the talk", which involved me sitting between them and them placing a book in my lap. I don't even remember this conversation. All I remember is staring down at the book and not even wanting to touch it. Of course they chose this time in my life to tell me about Santa Claus as well.

I have never been the same since.

As I was watching the clock slowly tick by the minutes, I suddenly got an outstanding idea! I was sitting in the back row and all I had to do was slump really low down in my chair and my teacher wouldn't even see me! Brilliant!!! I was going to make it out alive after all.

It was getting closer and closer to my turn. Suddenly, there were only two people left to go in front of me. Now one. Now....silence.

"Oh. There you are Mary. I almost didn't see you."

Was that my name? Oh God. She said my name. What do I do? , random thoughts popping in and out of my head on what to do or say.

I looked to my left. I looked to my right. No one there to help me. The boys were starting to snicker. Stupid boys. Why do there have to be boys anyway? They're gross and stupid and icky...

Oh..... right.

Suddenly this huge figure was towering above me. I tried to look up at her but my neck failed me. She was saying something. What was she saying? Her voice was getting louder. She was pointing at the betraying magazine lying on my desk unopened.

"WHAT WAS YOUR STORY ABOUT? WHAT DID YOU DO WITH YOUR TIME?"

She was yelling at me. And all I could do was stare blankly. I was getting in trouble and it was her OWN stupid fault for not looking at the headlines before hand.

I continued to say absolutely nothing as she flailed about, pointing and yelling...and finally giving me an x-mark on my once clear record of never getting into trouble. (There was a board with all of the student's names on it. There were several columns and we were each allowed 3 strikes before we got after school detention. I now had 1.)

But I never said a word.

She was evil for making this assignment. All boys were evil for laughing at me. Reader's Digest was evil for writing such an article (one that I still have no clue what it entailed.) And above all, the most evil of all things evil...was sex.

The bell rang, but it was too late. Class was over . The damage was already done.


Dreaded S.E.X that you are. I shall never forgive you for this embarrassment. Oh why oh why could I have not just this once, been saved by the bell?