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Elementary School Enchiladas

Having a crush in grade school can be rough. The cafeteria food-even worse.

By Christopher BallPublished 3 years ago 5 min read
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We all have these moments.

The ones that come out of nowhere and become such a big deal that they shape who we are. A mistake we will go to great lengths to never have to repeat it again.

These moments are especially common when we are young. When we are still figuring out our bodies and how to control them. We also don't understand the rules of society or our culture.

Luckily, it's also a period of time where everyone goes through this. While we may remember these moments so strongly, others do not. The events may happen and we get teased for a few days or even weeks, but eventually people forget - or at least they don't bring it up until a few years later while reminiscing.

After many years of being plagued to remember our most embarrassing moments, we all still cringe at 2am when the memory suddenly creeps into out minds and reminds us that there are things we regret.

Here is mine:

It started off as a normal day of elementary school. Sit at our desks, learn our courses, do activities, have recess breaks, and not have to worry about the impending stress of getting good grades to get into a college so we could spend thousands of dollars just to get an equally stressful job that underpays, but we need to have so that we can afford a house and food and necessities just to live.

So yeah, it was a pretty good time.

6th Grade was an especially exciting year as were the oldest kids in the school. We were mere months aware from moving up into the enchanting world of middle school. We were the most mature, smartest, and biggest kids. The young ones looked up to us for guidance, and the 5th graders wanted to be us.

With undeveloped brains came strange ways to try and impress as well as compete with other boys. The popular one at that time, for some reason was to kick each others feet.

My desk faced another boy's deck and at times that meant it was hard to stretch our legs without ramming them into each other. This developed into a territorial war that meant kicking the oppositions feet whenever they crossed the invisible boundary where the two desks met.

One day the boy across from me was being extra territorial. I suspect it was because he also had a crush on the girl that sat behind me, and he was jealous that I sat closer to her. Not only that, but he was growing a lot and needed the extra leg room.

The morning was filled by both coursework and the boy constantly kicking at my shoes every five minutes. By lunch time I was fed up with the nonsense and hoped lunch would help him stretch his legs out and put him in a better mood.

After getting the meal of the day, which was an enchilada, I made sure to sit at a different lunch table where I wouldn't have to deal with constantly getting kicked.

I dreaded sitting back at my deck once lunch had come to an end. My stomach had not agreed with the "high quality" American school system food.

For a few hours the boy had stopped kicking. After a couple hours he was back to it again.

With only an hour left in the day I was beyond irritated. As most kids do, I raised my hand to tell the teacher.

As I looked around the room, I noticed she was no longer there. The boy smirked at my failed attempt to be a tattle tale, and kicked at me again - only harder.

I'd finally had enough and decided to take matters into my own hands (or feet in this instance) and kicked with all the strength I could muster. As my foot sped at the other boy, a couple things happened which lead to what I would still consider the most embarrassing moment of my life.

First: When the other boy saw my expression, he did the smart thing and pulled his feet away.

Second: While my foot missed his, my exposed shin did not miss the hard metal of the desk.

Third: At the sudden unexpected result of my actions, the pain made me forget basic bodily functions, and I let loose the gaseous accumulation that came about from elementary school enchiladas. The combination of the length and sound reverberating in the metal chair stopping all conversation in the entire classroom.

Fourth: My classmates erupt with laughter. There are normal farts, and then there was this. The people around me were stuck between uncontrollable howling and the struggle to pull their shirts above their nose. I quickly look behind and see my crush with a disgusted look on her face, knowing that any chance of romance was completely out of the question...forever.

Fifth: If the events that happened weren't bad enough, my teacher comes back into the room, takes one look at my cherry red face and asks "did someone fart?" The entire class bursts out laughing even more and start pointing at me as I shrink into my chair wishing I had the foresight to have skipped lunch.

As many kids do, I went home that day in shame, trying to figure out if there was a way I could drop out of school, move to another country, or find a time machine.

Though I was more embarrassed in that moment than I had been in my entire life, I am lucky that everyone got over it almost immediately. In fact, for the next few days a couple of the other boys tried to fart in some strange attempt to one-up me. They could not.

I still look back fondly on that year. The feelings of being on top of the world. The rush from promises that we were no longer going to be treated like children. The transition to learning about adult things like dating.

That memory sticks out like a sore thumb, but I learned to see the humor in it. I even genuinely laugh when I tell the story to friends or coworkers now.

School
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