Virtual Scapegoat

[Cadaverous Pallor]

Once I was brushing my teeth with my younger brother. He must've been 4 or 5, which makes me 8 or 9. I was swishing water in my mouth when I suddenly felt this irrisistible urge.

I spit the toothpastey water all over my brother's shirt. His shirt said "Born to Boogie" on it, I'll never forget it. He burst into tears. I was majorly busted, but I didn't feel contrite at all - it was worth it. You just never get to do that!

---

One Hanukkah I brought home some song sheets from Hebrew school with some new songs. Our family always sings a bunch of songs during candlelighting. My dad was very pleased with the new additions and added them to the list. They were copied and stapled onto the old sheets. There were no music notes, just the lyrics. They are relatively well known Hanukkah songs that most Jews know.

What I could never tell my Dad is that he sang one of the lines out of tune. Dad is a trained singer. He just hadn't heard the song in a long time. I knew the proper way to sing it since I'd sung it in school, of course. It drove me mad.

I think it was after 2 Hanukkahs that I finally cracked. At some other time in the year, I dug out all the song sheets at my Grandmother's house. There must've been something like 40 copies. I tore off the offending songs from each set (I knew all the songs I'd brought home had to be erased in order for this to be clean) and dumped crumpled them into the trash. All of this while the adults were socializing in the other room. I was never questioned on the stuffed trashcan in my Grandmother's den.

The punchline is that it didn't make much difference. I could never have pulled off this maneuver at home. We had our own set of sheets for our family. If they disappeared, one of us kids would have to be the culprit. So we continued to sing it at home.

Add to that that we had stopped having large family Hanukkah parties, so I didn't have to endure it there anyway. I think there was one year where we got all together and there was a moment of "I thought we had copies of that for everyone?" Of course they sang it anyway, or at least my Dad did, with everyone else attempting to remember the lyrics.

He still sings it wrong. I don't cringe as much as I used to, but I still hate it.

[Cadaverous Pallor]

I have to admit I'm pretty shocked, reading some of these. I thought I was a slacker!

[€uroMeinke]

My school years taught me that what’s real doesn’t matter so much as what the records say are real. So hear are a few examples of that learning – made more amusing if you know my current profession:

In high school, each semester’s PE class was divided into 3 sections. During each section, you select your next PE class. To manage the process, they gave us the cards they use to track attendance and grade, handing them out to us to then hand to the coach we wanted next. The cards were needed at the beginning and end of each semester to record our grades and attendance, which meant – you could take the card for the 2nd section, not go to PE at all – but bring the card back for the third section selection. Being the instigator that I am, I shared this theory with a friend – who did it successfully and got a one hour break for a third of the year.

A subversive teacher of ours would sign his hall passes M. Borman, knowing it never really mattered who’s name was on the pass. We took this clue, stole a bunch of passes and continued the tribute signing them M Borman. My High school was very interested in finding his whereabouts.

On returning from an absence, we were required to go to the office to get a “readmit” slip, which would be signed by all our teachers (to let us back into class) and then turne3d back into the office at the end of the day. This was intended to prevent cutting class. However, getting our hands on some blank readmit forms – we were able to cut classes at will, as the office presumed, according to our records, that we had perfect attendance.

Detentions were tracked with tick marks on an index card, add the tick marks and you served your detention. The records being the obvious evidence of the act. Well, it’s amazing how easily accessible those cards were – I feel sorry for the kids who served their full terms.

Were I younger, I have no doubts I would have been a hacker in high school

[wendybeth]

Oooh, you were good..... I would just cut class and take the consequences.

[Prudence]

When I was in elementary school I was climbing on some monkey bars and got angry at some boy and stomped on his hand really hard. He went to tattle on me and when the playground lady came to investigate I put on my sweet little girl face and expressed my sincere apologies for having slipped accidentally stepped on him while climbing and gosh, I tried to apologize but he just run away....

And of course, since I was such a GOOD little girl, she bought it and sympathized with me about boys and their tempers.

And that was when I first knew that I was a fantastic liar.

[Ghoulish Delight]

Sigh.

I think I was about 9 and my sister 14. My parents went away on a weekend cruise and left us home alone for the first time. And oh boy did we take advantage of it! We walked to the supermarket, walked right in...and bought some marshmallow cereal damnit!! Take that world!!


Man oh man were we lame.

[UvaGirl]

LOL, the Secret Club. Ours was called Les Enfants de la Nuit (oh the pretension, even at 14 ), and I can't really remember what we got up to. Just trying to push the boundaries with teachers, spread the occassional rumour, that kind of stuff. Good times

[Eliza Hodgkins 1812]

I was in line at El Pollo Loco the other day. Wait, to clarify, I was standing in front of the register and there was no one else in line with me. I was the line.

There were other people there waiting for their orders. And there were employees bustling about the kitchen, moving about the back where they have their offices, cooking in the kitchen, and one woman was making sure everyone got their orders.

No one was looking at me. Not any of the people standing next to me. Not a single employee. The seconds and minutes began rolling by. Some people seemed to see past me, or to see to the side of me.

I’ll preface the rest by saying that I am an agnostic, closer to an atheist than anything else. However, I’m open to suggestion, being proven wrong, or just one day waking up and feeling wrong. (Less likely, I’ll eventually succumb to my Jesus Boy Bus Crush’s attempts to convert his fellow commuters so that he might consider sticking his tongue down my throat.)

When I’d been standing for about 4 minutes, I was gripped with a sudden fear/realization that I might possibly be dead, and no one could see me. I wracked my brain to remember a close encounter with a car that I thought I’d narrowly missed. I felt the walkman in my hand. It felt solid. I felt solid. But I was glued to my position and too startled to actually scream, “CAN YOU PEOPLE SEE ME? PLEASE TELL ME YOU CAN SEE ME. HERE, SIR, TOUCH MY FACE. IS IT NOT FLESH? AM I NOT CORPOREAL? ATHEISTS CAN’T BE GHOSTS!”

The feeling lasted for about 5-10 seconds, but the panic was acute and very real. Sure, it was panic influenced by movies like The Sixth Sense and The Others, but it felt more real than fiction. I’m certain I wasn’t just putting myself on for my own deranged amusement. Then again....

For at least 10 seconds, I thought I was a ghost, a specter, a spook, a wraith, a thing of airy nothing without habitation or a name (to twist around Shakespeare's words).

And why is this a confession?

Because it’s embarrassing! I really thought I might have died because no one at El Pollo Loco was available to take my order and, by extension, was refusing to acknowledge my existence.

And when the woman behind the counter finally said, “May I take your order?” I first wanted to kiss her feet and then I wanted to become irate about her poor customer services skills. Why couldn’t she have just looked at me and said, “Be with you in a minute, flesh and bone alive person!”

Then I wouldn’t of had to experience a crisis of (lack of) faith or my own existence.

I confess that I'm apparently a crazy person.

[€uroMeinke]

Originally Posted by Eliza Hodgkins 1812

Then I wouldn’t of had to experience a crisis of (lack of) faith or my own existence.

I think you need to hire an existential detective

[Eliza Hodgkins 1812]

Originally Posted by €uroMeinke

I think you need to hire an existential detective

I loved that movie. Saw it at the Arc Light during one of their boozer shows, so it funny and beerlicious. I really like David O' Russell films, but I was surprised by how much I crushed on that film. Lily Tomlin was divine hilarity.

Ah, I do need an existential detective, I think. LMAO, Chris.