Sent Home for Scratching

The year was 1983, and I was in the third grade. My middle half-brother and I were living with our grandmother while our mother found a more stable place for us to live. During this time, we attended a school that was only four blocks from her home, and we'd walk there every day.

I was excited to be living with my grandmother. She was one of my favorite people in the world. I knew she loved me just as much as I loved her. To me, she could never do anything wrong; she was my idol. My hero.

On one Saturday, the ceiling above her bed fell in, landing all over her mattress and bedclothes. There hadn't been a leak to tell us it was weakened. It was a huge surprise to everyone.

I remember my uncle and stepdad fixing the ceiling in her room for the rest of that weekend. I can also see my grandma washing her sheets, blanket, and curtains. I know it's odd for me to remember her washing those, but she never washed her curtains as long as I can recall before then. I thought then, "I wonder if they'll fall apart."

Come Monday morning, my grandma got my brother and me up for school, and no one even gave the incident another thought. After making sure we ate, she walked us to school and saw me to my classroom door. Then the day began.

Soon after my brother and I dressed, we started feeling itchy. The closer we got to the school, the more we scratched. The longer we stayed at school, the more we dug. By lunchtime, we had huge marks where our fingernails had touched our skin, and we were starting to be covered in a huge rash.

My brother was the first to crack, the first to complain. His teacher pitied him and sent him to the principal's office. While he was there, my teacher, seeing me dig myself raw, sent me to the nurse. The nurse took me to the office, where she saw my brother also suffered from the same rash.

Now, in my mind, seeing my brother sitting there, I automatically thought he and I were both in loads of trouble for bickering with each other or something at lunch. He was the older sibling, but we still saw each other throughout the day, and in classic little sister fashion, I was truly annoying. Sometimes on purpose.

Instead, the nurse and the principal disappeared into his office. They were inside the little room for what seemed like hours, but possibly only twenty minutes went by. When they came out, the principal handed my brother a note in an envelope and told us to walk straight home and give the note to our grandmother.

When we arrived home, my grandmother opened the note. She immediately went pale, called my mother at her work, and told her what had happened. Being nosy, I of course eavesdropped.

"Kay, I washed those curtains in my washer. They were full of insulation. We need to take all the kids' clothes I just washed to the laundromat and wash them to get the fiberglass out. No, they're itching something fierce, the school sent them home. They're both red as can be."

My grandmother, bless her every loving soul, had washed those fiberglass-filled bedclothes and curtains and washed them in her washing machine, then turned right around without cleaning out her machine at all, and washed all of our school clothes in the same machine. No wonder we were digging to distraction.

That's how my grandma got me expelled from the third grade. It took almost a week for that rash to heal from the gouging we did. It healed, and we went back to school, and this tale became one of those you regale others with at the family gatherings.