“Do you have any kids?”
The cashier waited patiently for my answer.
I scanned my body. I still get ID’d at restaurants and bars. I don’t look old, do I? I mean I guess I could’ve had kids by now. I technically have had the capability for years.
“How about cats? Do you have any cats?”
I scanned myself again. Am I already at the point of no return? Where my option is either kid or cat? How do I explain to this woman I have neither and I still have a hard time taking care of just myself.
“No, just me,” I said but with a peppy voice to ensure I was not sad/lonely/pathetic because I’m not but it still made me strangely defensive.
“Oh okay, I just have a box of clown noses I’m trying to get rid of.”
She didn’t explain herself any further. I assumed it was originally a fundraiser. For clowns.
I said I’d take one for myself so she gave me two as if I have two noses or I was lying the whole time about the kid/cat I may or may not have.
I sat in the car with the clown nose but it made it hard to see while driving. And even worse than that it forced me to become a mouth-breather and no wants that. Especially my possible kid/cat.
On an unrelated note that I will forcefully mesh together: I had a flashback to when I was in kindergarten. Birthday kids had to lay down on a long roll of construction paper and then the teacher drew a line around the current birthday kid’s body. Like a crime scene.
Maybe it was to teach us about our own mortality. Maybe it was a therapy tool for our teacher.
Then the rest of the class would write nice things about the birthday kid inside the lines of the body. Because that’s what I wanted on my birthday. A bunch of sticky kindergartners writing adjectives all over a symbol of my body. Maybe this is how Jesus feels when people take communion. I probably just offended somebody.
Moving on.
I volunteered to cut the construction paper above the kid’s head. The last kid in charge of the scissors cut some hair in the process so I was watched intently.
My teacher spoke gently about how to hold the scissors and I rolled my eyes internally.
How old did she think I was? Four? Well, I was five, lady, and I was familiar with arts and crafts.
Right before the ceremony was to begin (I promise my mother assures me we weren’t in a cult and this wasn’t a school in a Lifetime movie) the child lay down on the crinkly paper and the teacher methodically drew around his body.
As the ink dried in between his fingers my arch nemesis (not really but it makes it more dramatic) chucked a marker at me. I was outraged. I was the scissor-carrier, the cutter, the one-that-released-the-paper-from-the-rest-of-the-paper. How dare he?!
So I threw the scissors at his head.
Ok, I threw a wooden block but the scissors would have been more thematic.
The block hit our teacher in the back of the head and the sound of marker against paper squiggled to a stop.
“Who did this?” she seethed with the block in her hand.
I stepped forward to apologize and be forgiven quickly because I was such a big person for admitting my mistake.
The scissors were taken away and I was sent to a corner to think about what I’d done.
I thought to myself, “I will never forgive any of them and I will remember for years the shame they have caused me. My children will one day know this story.”
Here I am almost two decades later with no kid or cat to share this tragic tale too.
So I offer to you my woes and an extra clown nose. You’re welcome.
Discussion questions:
- Why are clown noses funny?
- What happened in your childhood that you could turn into a Lifetime movie?
- Don’t answer that second question unless you were in a cult. Lifetime only wants cults. Give up now.