Kindergarten

Before kindergarten started, I had to get evaluated or something, to see if I was ready for school. My mother and I went to the elementary school, and there were metal folding chairs in the kindergarten hallway. We sat in those, and my mother showed me the classroom I was supposed to walk into. But I couldn't do it. I was too scared to walk into a room by myself, at age four and a half, of older kids I didn't know. So we sat. And sat. And then? We sat some more. My mother calmly waited with me in those metal chairs, waiting for me to get up the courage to go in the door. Looking back, I think it was hours. Maybe it was just 20 minutes, maybe it was all afternoon - I don't know. What I do know, is that my mother was calm and encouraging. There was nothing better she could have done. Eventually another little girl showed up for her kindergarten evaluation, and my mother pointed out her bravery when she pushed the door open and went right in. So I did it too. The door was heavy, and when I got into the classroom all the kids were sitting on the floor - it was story time.

I sat down next to the girl who'd pushed open the door. The teacher, a grandmotherly looking woman with tight, gray curls, offered the other girl and I the opportunity to share a chocolate bar. She was a stranger to me, so I said no thank you. I was deemed ready for kindergarten. That teacher was not my teacher though. I got a different, better teacher. In all honesty, the teacher with the curly hair seemed kind of stupid to me. I guess I was an obnoxious four year old, to think an adult was stupid. But she was.

Kindergarten started out really well. The girl who lived around the block from me who I played with often, Jennifer, was in my class. Elizabeth, who was prissy and liked to play with baby things like dolls, was in the other class and I was happy about that. That girl who pushed open the door? I think that was Alana, and she and I were friends. I don't know who gave it to me, but I got a dorito one morning. The second after I started chewing, I knew I hated it. When I told Alana, she encouraged me to spit the dorito out in the coat closet in our classroom. I did, behind a boy's coat, and felt guilty for it as I should have. Since then I've never had another Dorito. Alana tried to get me to try a cheese puff, but I was grossed out by how they turned other kid's fingers orange, and refused. Plus they smelled bad.

When you look back at things that happened when you were a kid, time is hard to figure. I don't know if I was out of kindergarten often, or just once for a long time. But I think it was because of fever of unknown origin. The day I came back to school, my nice teacher told me the class had been learning about what baby animals were called, and she went through them all with the class, to bring me up to speed. Everyone wanted to sit next to Laurie (the tall one, not the regular Lori) and she kept scooting further and further back, away from the group. Because it was my first day back I guess, I was allowed to sit with Laurie.

There was a girl named Beth in my kindergarten class. She always had a runny nose. Not just runny, but dried snot was all around her nose also. And she was allergic to chocolate. I remember, because on birthdays when kids brought munchkins in from Dunkin Donuts, Beth got to choose which one she wanted first, lest she be stuck with a chocolate munchkin.

I hear that these days kids in kindergarten have to learn how to read. Back in the olden days when I was in kindergarten, we were just preparing to learn how to read. I remember having to trace the number "8" on a ditto, and bringing it to my teacher after I finished. I traced it wrong. I traced two circles, one on top of the other, rather than tracing in a figure eight pattern. I could not see the difference; did not understand what I was doing wrong at all. Learning disability even then? Maybe. I make eights correctly now. While I was working on my "8"I looked over at all the kids who'd traced their 8 correctly and were already playing. I was jealous; I wanted to be them.

Another time I finished my work early and ran to grab the best truck in the classroom - it went the fastest and I'd wanted to ride on it since the beginning of the year, but the boys had always gotten it first. I rode my truck over to my friends, who had congregated underneath a table to finish their work. I proudly showed off the truck, assuming they'd be excited at what I got for us to share, away from the boys. One of them pushed me away, and I was not only hurt, but confused. Did they not realize how fast the truck could go?

The end of the school day was always chaotic - kindergarten was half days and I was an afternoon student, so we were getting out of class at the same time as the rest of the school. Two fourth graders came every day around 3 p.m. to help us kindergartners get jackets on and lunch boxes together, and to walk us to the lobby. I was a walker, and my mother didn't embarrass me by waiting in the lobby. She waited all the way at the bottom of the hill, near the crossing guard. Sometimes she brought our dog. During the winter when there was snow, a few times she even brought our red plastic sled, and lugged me, the dog, my bookbag, and my brother's bookbag home. She'd bring the plastic ski poles (I don't recall there being any plastic skis) for my brother to use. There was a small hill that was no big deal to walk up, but must have been a bitch and a half for her to drag us up (the mountain).

Even though when I was a fourth grader, I was a kindergarten helper for a while, as a kindergartner I hated the helpers. I didn't need any help with my jacket. Of course I didn't, because my parents had a rule - if you can't zipper it, we won't buy it for you. The kindergarten helpers always made us walk IN a line to the lobby, and ON a silver line on the floor. Why? Because that's what they were forced to do, probably. It seemed so lame to me. I didn't need to be escorted to the lobby. I wouldn't get lost - I never got lost in that school.

On the last day of kindergarten, my mother had walked to school to pick me up. As we were leaving to go home, someone told us a group of my friends were going to McDonalds to celebrate, and invited us. My mother explained to me that we'd have to walk home to get her car, and then drive over, so we couldn't go WITH them, but we'd catch up. When we arrived all the mothers were sitting together and all the kids were sitting at tables nearby. My mother got me settled with food and went to sit with the mothers. As I put my straw into my milkshake, Jill came over. I don't remember her exact words, but she said something very mean to me about thinking I was better than everyone else for getting a milkshake instead of a soda. I tried to explain - that I didn't like soda - but she wouldn't hear it. And somehow, she convinced all the other girls too.

Jill was a bitch, even in kindergarten. She never changed.