K-12: Adventures in Education. Part 3

This is part 3 in a 7 part series chronicling the adventures of young Alex Traynor in public school, if you haven't read Part 1 or Part 2 yet, I'd advise reading them before this.

1st half of 4th grade – Paddock Road Elementary, Omaha, NE

“You’re moving?!”
“Yeah”
“Where to?”
“Nebraska”
“What’s Nebraska?”

“What’s Nebraska?” is a question I first received 8 years ago. And 8 years after the fact and with a little firsthand experience, I still have no fucking clue just what the hell Nebraska is. Sure, it is a state, and I did live there for 6 months, but saying I know what Nebraska is, is like Elton John saying he knows what a vagina feels like. Sure, he did come from one, and he spent 9 months living there, but that was a long time ago, and vaginas are long in his past. I’m from Connecticut (home to gigantic mansions, luxurious public facilities, and primarily, rich white kids), and deep down I’ll always be a Connectikitten (that’s my term, back off, bitches). Moving to Nebraska was a fun excursion (like when Elton John said he was ‘bi’ in the mid 70’s), but ultimately I belonged in Connecticut (and Elton John belongs in another man’s asshole?)

Now, some might assume that since I lived in Omaha only a short time, that it’s not that memorable of an experience. Not only did it give me a boost in self-confidence and a mild sense of purpose, Omaha taught me how to do something that’s changed my life: Pander to the lowest common denominator. Whether its fart jokes, pee jokes, crude sex jokes, or just donkey fuckin’ jokes, if it wasn’t for Omaha, I wouldn’t be telling them today.

I said goodbye to every friend I had ever made in July of 1998, and embarked upon a halfway cross country road trip with my parents, grand-parents, brother, and dog Max all stuffed into a 1997 Jeep Grand Cherokee. We arrived 7 days later and I would go on to describe the trip as ‘very corny’ (that was a pun; we saw a lot of corn on our way there). After the summer was over, I was introduced to Paddock Road Elementary School, a K-6 Elementary school with a playground, one long hallway, and a luxurious “gymnacafetorium”.

Within the first day, it became very clear that I didn’t fit in. For one main reason: I was the smartest person in the entire state. Sure, there may have been times when an exception could be made (such as a plane of normal people flying over the state), but for the most part, I had learned more in my previous 4 years of education than most Nebraskans learn in their lives.

Throughout the day, I could practically watch my prospective friendships shatter whenever I would utter a word they didn’t understand (“Stop using such big words!” “Big words? You consider ‘because’ to be a big word?” “What the fuck does that mean?!”). By the end of the week, I didn’t have a single friend, that is, until I lowered my threshold of “acceptable” friends, and met Logan.

I met Logan when we were partnered together for “Cafeteria Duty”(Omaha Legislators decided to lower the school budget, eliminating the funding for Cafeteria Workers, so the school administration utilized the next best thing: Fourth Graders!), and we started hanging out most of the time after that. Our friendship was based mainly around desperation. I was the new kid who had an incredibly large vocabulary, therefore, I was shunned. Logan gave everyone the creeps, and was possibly retarded, therefore, he was shunned. We didn’t have very much in common. I liked Star Wars, while Logan really really liked professional wrestling (and it wasn’t like he was a casual fan of the World Wrestling Federation either; he was fucking infatuated with that crap [to the point where he would throw chairs across our classroom]). Now, while Logan may not have been the perfect friend for me, I was desperate… and he had a Nintendo 64.

For two whole months, I almost exclusively hung around Logan, and in the time I got to know him I learned two things valuable to increasing my position in the social hierarchy.

1. Don’t use big words.
2. Farting is hilarious.

Eventually, I implemented those teachings into my everyday speech pattern, and my social status began to steadily increase. Within time, I had almost completely morphed into a semi-retarded “Omaha-approved” version of myself. Here are some examples:

Regular Alex: “This Nintendo 64 game is awesome”
Omaha Alex: “Let’s play some football!”

Regular Alex: “Ew, somebody just farted”
Omaha Alex: “Hahahahahahahaha”

Regular Alex: “I think that the socio-economic impact of 19th century Poland drastically altered the current monetary system”
Omaha Alex: “Let’s play some football!”

After a month of Omaha Alex, I had at least 5 new friends (with at least 3 of them being people who didn’t practice Wrestling moves on me [not competitive wrestling moves either, painful WWF chair-throwing wrestling moves]). And suddenly, in early December something happened that would promote me to near celebrity status at Paddock Road Elementary. I remembered this rhyme:

Old Macdonald sitting on a bench
Picking his balls with a monkey wrench
Wrench got hot and burned his balls
Peed all over his overalls
Went to the doctor, and the doctor said
“Gee, Old Mac, but your balls are dead”
When I die, bury me
Hang my balls on a cherry tree
When they’re ripe, take a bite
Don’t blame me if you barf all night.

In a day, I became the most popular kid in my class, possibly even the most popular kid in Nebraska. All because I “Created” (I didn’t actually make it up, people just assumed I did and I “forgot” to correct them) that rhyme.

From then on, life in Omaha was great. I’m not exaggerating that that stupid rhyme made me god-like at Paddock Road (I’m actually pretty confident that if the kids had to choose between me and a reincarnated Jesus, and I recited that rhyme, they’d totally forget about the whole “dying for your sins” thing). A lot of things changed after that rhyme, here are some of the more notable:

• Girls who normally wouldn’t speak to me were hitting on me like I was every member of the group “Hanson” rolled into one.
• I was made quarterback in the recess football pickup games, even though I had a terrible throwing arm, and thought football and soccer were the same thing until I was 8.
• Whenever anyone would fart, the whole class would look towards me. If I laughed, the fart was officially funny.
• Other students started to imitate my uniquely patented style of dress: Jeans and T-shirts (although it’s possible they would have worn that stuff anyway)
• A few of them actually let me teach them how to spell “Connecticut” (It sure ain’t “Kinettikut”)
• I was exempt from all sleep-over “cage matches” (They would lock you in a large closet with the class “big dumb idiot” [Logan], and he would wrestle you until either: A. Time was up or B. You died.)
• I got to mop the tables in Cafeteria Duty (which, trust me, was the only job that didn’t involve dirty plates and a gigantic hose)

I had never been happier in my life. Sure, I had to change myself into someone my normal self would consider to be retarded, but that was a small price to pay for true happiness. My future in Omaha looked brighter than it ever had in Connecticut, and I started to imagine myself in Omaha for the rest of my life.

And then I moved back to Connecticut.

The memory of Omaha means a lot of different things to me. Other than the thought of a great alternate future in Omaha being the bane of my existence, my stint in Omaha was an essential stepping stone in shaping the very person I am today. Aside from all the great fart jokes it taught me (*fart*), it taught me that I have no problem acting like an idiot as long as people like me for it. Which for the most part, is an indispensible part of who I am.

*FART*
heheheheh….
hahahahahha…
HAHAHAHAHAH!
Oh shit, that still gets me every time.
Hilarious.

2nd half of 4th grade – Mrs. Bliss’ Class

During every person’s young life, there are certain adult concepts one must grasp before venturing onto adulthood. I refer to these concepts as the “big four”: Sex, Death, Abortion, and Racism. The revelation of these concepts can be quite jarring to a child, since they disrupt the child’s view of reality, and each revelation is a significant emotional milestone. I remember them all very clearly:

Sex: 3rd grade (“So babies don’t come out through the belly button?!”)
Death: 6th Grade (“Mommy, why is that hobo not moving anymore?!”)
Abortion: Last week (“They do what to the what-what?!”)
And finally Racism: 4th Grade.

In December of 1998 I moved to my current place of residence, Glastonbury, CT. Upon moving to Glastonbury, I’ve met many people who’ve influenced me a great deal, but none of them have influenced me as much as Charles Sims: The first black person I had ever met.

Now, I had seen black people before, mainly through TV and the movies (Lando Calrissian!), but I had never actually seen one up close and personal before. I would characterize my initial reaction as: shocked (“He’s like a big gigantic bar of chocolate!”). Although, eventually the shock wore off and I began to notice his skin color less and less.

Now, I’d like to tell you all how Charles and I overcame racial barriers and became good friends who frolicked through meadows and celebrated diversity together, but I can’t do that, because of one main reason: Charles was an asshole. He was probably the meanest kid I had met thus-far in my life.

Initially I had tried making friends with him, but it quickly became clear that we hated each other and what we both stood for. He resented my cocky arrogant 4th grade attitude (he kicked my ass in basketball after a week of me advertising my “mad skills” [I had thought for a little while that I was really good at basketball after I beat everyone in Omaha at it. Turns out, everyone in Omaha ‘really sucks’ at basketball, while I just merely ‘suck’]), while I resented the fact that he didn’t like Pokémon (I mean, come on, they’re tiny monsters that you catch in balls! What’s not to love?). Our dislike of one another grew and grew, until one fateful day in March of 1999, when it all came to a climax:

For the first three hours of the day, Charles and I were going at it like usual. He was taunting me, and I was taunting him back. Things didn’t escalate until recess. I was trading Pokémon cards with the rest of the class, when Charles walks up to the group.
“Cheat any more kindergarteners out of their Pokémon cards again today, Potty Traynor?”
Charles had just picked a fight, by crossing two gigantic 4th grader lines that you just do not cross. First of all, he had criticized the well-respected 4th grader practice of deceiving the younger kids into trading more valuable cards for significantly less valuable cards (“Look how shiny this one is! It’s obviously worth like a bazillion dollars!”), something shunned upon by the community (lest our secret get out). Secondly, he had called me “Potty Traynor”. Thems was fightin’ words.
I knew I had to come back with something huge, something both funny and relevant enough to win back the respect of the trading circle. I had to do something unprecedented, give Charles Sims a nickname. I searched my brain rapidly for some pop-culture reference to connect the name ‘Charles’ to.
“Go to hell, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory!”
Everyone gasped.
In retrospect, I realize how incredibly racist calling a black man “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” is, but at the time, I had no clue.
I stood there smiling for a few moments until I realized that I was the only person smiling.
“Oh crap, I must’ve screwed something up”, I thought to myself.
I realized that I needed to fix my botched joke.
“I mean, go to hell, Charlie and the Shit Factory!”
“Ah, now that’s better,” I thought.
But no-one else started to smile. I looked around the group, who had been collectively silent for a minute, and I looked at their awkward, stunned faces until I reached the face of my friend Andrew, who was nodding disapprovingly.
That was the exact moment I grasped the concept of racism.
I realized that somehow I had to mend all the racial harm I had caused and I had to do it fast. My strategy was to call Charles one last nickname. Although this time it would be an innocuous, racially-sensitive nickname, to prove that I only meant the other mean nicknames in a strictly non-racist way.
“Go to hell, Charlie Brown!”
As confident I was in my third try at a comeback, once I heard yet another collective gasp, my thought process went as follows:
“Everyone loves Charlie Brown, there’s no way anyone could think that’s racis… brown… oh shit... RUN!”
I ran and hid behind the playscape until recess was over

Eventually my new nickname, “Racist”, faded and it took backseat to another (“The A-Trayn”, given to me by a gym teacher), but the remnants of my supposed racism lingered for weeks. That was, until Charles realized that I wasn’t a member of the KKK, but rather one of the most socially inept people he had ever met. From then on, things weren’t as tense with Charles, although last time I checked, he was still an asshole (Pokémon rule!). I’ll conclude this chapter with a little advice: Never ever call anybody “Charlie and The Charlie Factory”, even if their name is Charlie and the do own a chocolate factory, because there’s a good chance that they’re black or know someone who’s known a black person at any point in their life and could be touchy about it.

To be continued...