It was the big night; our chorus class had practiced half a year for this concert. We were all donned in our white button up shirts and black skirts, while the boys wore white buttoned up shirts with black pants. The audience was packed, all the moms and dads huddled together in the auditorium awaiting our entrance onto the stage.

Our prize pieces for the night were, ‘Ghost of John’ and ‘Penny Lane’. Don’t worry, you didn’t miss anything.

My entire class was standing outside the auditorium, peeking in to see if we could find our parents or someone we knew. There was a minute left before we were to enter, quietly, in our single file lines. My chorus teacher was sweating bullets. I was standing next to my friend, when our teacher announced it was time to walk in.

Everyone moved quickly to get into their places, except me. I was in dress shoes and a skirt. This may shock you, but I can’t wear those things. Especially in combination. My friend tugged me along.

“Come on, we have to get in line.”

Working on it.

For a split second, a terrible thought crossed my mind. How embarrassing would it be to trip in front of that packed auditorium, while trying to get onto the stage? I couldn’t imagine anything else as embarrassing. Don’t worry, I didn’t trip in the auditorium. I did, however, find something that was more embarrassing.

We were on the lower level of the waiting area. There was a set of steps up to the door to get in, where kids were now filing up. I mixed somewhere in the middle there. Five steps. That’s all there were, five steps. I just had to get up those five steps to get into the auditorium but naturally that’s not something within my ability to do. My foot caught that third step and I tumbled forward, crashing on the fourth and fifth step; I felt my skirt flip up behind me.

My friend seemed shocked and embarrassed for me and she pulled me up off the step.

“Are you okay?”

I turned to see half my class behind me, some actually bothered to look like they didn’t see what God had given me and others smirked.

Great. Just great. At least I was wearing undies.

My sixth-grade science teacher had forgotten to bring an egg to school one morning to use in our science experiment. Naturally, she sent me and a friend of mine to the cafeteria to fetch one. When we got there, the ladies in the kitchen were just cleaning up from the breakfast rush.

I could see that mornings left over scrambled eggs going into the back. In a rush, those eggs weren’t so bad. Many mornings I had made a mad dash for them before the bell rang. I don’t know about you, but it felt like an eternity waiting for the lunch bell to ring if I skipped breakfast.

When we got to the cafeteria, I stopped the first lady I saw. She was cleaning the tray line, slinging left-over food in every direction. When she spotted us, she stopped slinging her rag around and stood with her hand on her hip.

“Our teacher wanted us to ask you for an egg.”

“What?”

She sounded almost confused. I thought I had been clear the first time, but I took another stab at it.

“An egg.”  

You know, that oval white thing that comes out of a chicken. Of course, some eggs are different colors and they don’t all come out of chickens, but I didn’t want to confuse the poor lady any more than she already was.

I couldn’t tell if her face was twisting in disgust or confusion.

“We need it for a science project,” I gently prodded. What else does she want?

“I heard you,” she snapped, “We don’t have them.”

There’s no need to lie, if you don’t want to give us one just say so.

 “You don’t have an egg?” 

I pointed to the bucket of scrambled eggs another lady was carrying to the back. I didn’t want to come right out and say it, but I wasn’t going to just go away. It was too early in the morning for this.

“We don’t use real eggs,” she said flatly.

I’ll be honest, her comment made me a little queasy.

“Then what have I been eating?”

I wasn’t sure I wanted the answer.

“We use powdered eggs.”

She spun on her heel and went back to cleaning. I turned to my friend who had the same concerned look on her face. What on Earth was a powdered egg? I had never even heard of something like that. When we returned to the classroom to give the teacher the news, she was just as surprised as we were.

Guess who never ate eggs there again.

I was standing in the aisle with all the fancy craft paper and pens when this group of teenagers showed up. They were laughing and carrying on, it was anyone’s guess about what. One of the guys separated from his click and stood beside me (of course), to go through some art supplies, while his friends disappeared. I was just thinking I needed to leave when he swore loudly.

Startled, I looked over at him. Dude, really?

He glanced at me and smiled, then turned his attention to his art supplies.

“I’m sexy,” he announced.

I knew I should have stayed home.

“I need to reproduce,” he told himself.

That's my queue. I left my art supplies there and exited the aisle.

You Sir are another reason I just stay home. 

It was the story my brother told about teaching my sister how to drive a stick shift, that got him into the mess in the first place. I had to have been fourteen or fifteen when he told us about my sister popping a wheelie on a tractor, nearly knocking him off, when he agreed to teach her how to drive a stick. Now why they were on a tractor is beyond me, but it was after that story I decided that I wanted to learn how to drive a stick, it can’t be that hard, right?

That was rhetorical.

I remember the color drained from his face when I asked him if he’d teach me, the apparent flash backs of his previous lesson still haunted him. He didn’t say no. He thought about it, I saw it crawl across his face. But he agreed.

At the time he had the pink car, before you ask, I don’t know why he had a pink car; he just did. My only interest in it, was that it was a stick. So off we go, to learn how to drive ‘stick’. He got in the driver’s seat first, we rode up and down the road once and he explained how it worked. Clutch, brake, gas, first, second, third, reverse; got it.

He parked on the middle of our hill and switch with me. When I got behind the wheel he said, “If you can get it off this hill, you can drive a stick.”

Alright, Master Po, not sure why you got so deep there all of a sudden but relax, I got this. Clutch in, first gear, started the engine and off we went. I glanced over at my brother who had a death grip on the ‘oh crap’ handle. His expression at first was astonishment that we were moving and then terror, because—we were moving. I drove it all the way to the end of our road switching gears, never grinded, didn’t stall, and I reversed back.

I think my brother felt the impending doom coming, he wanted to end it quickly so it could end on a good note. I couldn’t for the life of me figure out why he was so stiff. It wasn’t like I was blazing down the road. My sisters house was located right in the middle of the road we were driving on.

“Okay, park it at her (my sister’s) house,” he told me, pushing his imaginary brake.

I wasn’t even going that fast, I was only in second. My sister’s driveway had two huge azalea bushes on each side of the entrance, you could fit three or more (if you’re good) cars in the driveway then.

“Alright, “ I was a little disappointed the lesson was ending so soon. Maybe later, he’d teach me more.

“You need to slow down,” my brother warned.

I’m on it, I’ve pulled into this driveway a few times in my life; I think I’d know how to do it by now.

Clarification: I knew how to in an automatic.

As I got closer to the driveway, I pressed down on the brake, but the car wasn’t slowing down.

“You need to slow down,” my brother yelled.

I pressed down even harder this time, nothing. Panicked, I stomped down on the brake forgetting to turn the wheel all the way. We careened headfirst into one of those azalea bushes. Coming to a dead stop, we both bounced forward and then back.

My brother was not amused, “Okay, get out.”

Why didn’t the brake work? Confused, I looked down to discover my foot wasn’t on the brake but the clutch. Ah.

That ended all future lessons. Oops. 

Our history teacher had just herded us all outside. He had decided that in order to help us learn history, he had to make class fun. His idea of making class ‘fun’ was to play a sporting game of Capture the Flag. Now, I get the correlation with capture the flag and history; however, I wasn’t about to participate.

There were a few reasons why I didn’t want to. I was in middle school at the time and you know how it is, you’re afraid to do something to make yourself look stupid. But the bigger reason for not playing, was the simple fact that I didn’t run. Not unless absolutely necessary.

We stood in a circular huddle outside the school, getting the rules and regulations of the game. No one seemed thrilled. The area we were stationed had a large hill that lead from the doors to a flat piece of ground, which stretched out a pretty good way. The teams were split up and one team stationed their flag at the top of the hill, while my team stationed our flag on the other end of the level ground.

For a few minutes I watched people run back and forth from both teams, trying to capture a flag. Some succeeded and some were caught. I stood there on the border of the field, convincing myself that I would have never made it in a real-life war and conquest battle.

At this point in my school life, no one expected me to participate. Not even the teacher. He did run by at one point and told me to get in the game but we both knew it wasn’t going to happen. I’d like to point out that I wasn’t the only one just standing around, there were others.

There was a guy in class that I had been crushing on for a while, I think he knew. Who knows? He was giving more effort in the game than I was, he took a few jabs at the flag; even got it once. By now he was walking around aimlessly like I was, waiting for the bell to ring. I had made a few circles around the field by this point and was just ready to go to the next class. I found myself standing at the top of the hill a few feet away from the other team’s flag. There were three boys guarding it. They stood there planning their next plan of action, my team kept swooping in to try to grab their flag.

I watched two or three missed attempts; all three boys were guarding the flag like their life depended on it. At one point, one of them looked over at me. I’m sure my facial expression said it all, they had nothing to worry about from me; I wasn’t going for it. My reputation preceded me, he turned away from me to talk to the other two. Everyone had pretty much given up at this point, my team was tired and huddled around our flag, no one was running back up that hill. The other team stood talking to each other. We still had fifteen minutes before the bell rang.

After a minute, all three boys walked away from the flag to talk to someone else. That was stupid, I thought, someone could grab it. I looked down towards my team to see a few of them staring up at me. I turned away from them, the doors were just a few steps away, I could just wait there until the bell rang. I was three steps in, when this bright idea struck me.
I was always known as the girl who didn’t participate, no one expected anything great out of me athletically. If there was ever a chance for me to do something ‘sports’ related and WIN, this would be the time. My teams paying attention, the other is distracted, all I would have to do is make it down the hill with the flag and my team would cover me to the line. PLUS my crush was standing there watching me, how cool would I look if I actually got the flag across the line? I could grab that flag and get down the hill before they could get to me. Probably. What could go wrong?

You’re smiling right now aren’t you? Well, buckle up, you know it’s coming.

Going against my better judgement, I swirled around and snatched the flag out of the ground. The opposite team watched while I jerked it and the grass out of the ground, they were so stunned at what I was attempting, they didn’t move at first. I was three or four steps into my sprint down the hill when I heard someone shout, “Get her.”

Now that’s motivation isn’t it? I looked up, hoping that someone from my team noticed what I had done. I wasn’t disappointed, they had all noticed. They all stood locked in their positions; bewilderment was plastered across every face at what they were witnessing. This included my crush. I distinctly remember his jaw dropping. What can I say? When I shock em, I go all out.

I appreciated the undivided attention everyone was now offering; however, I was only halfway down the hill and those boys were breathing down my neck. A little help here please? All at once, my team snapped out of their dazed confusion and a few of them sprinted towards me. Those people made it onto my Christmas card list. A few of them whizzed by me in the opposite direction, trying to hold the others off so I could reach the line. One of them yelled, “Go, go, go.”

Look, I’m doing what I can here, okay. Don’t rush me. Doesn’t help.

My crush waited until I ran past him before he started running with me.

“Keep going.” He yelled.

Working on it, bud.

To all our astonishment, I made it past the line. I had gotten the ENEMIES flag across the line and scored a point.

I would have been happy to end that story right there. I scored a point and went to class.  

Please.

No sooner than I stepped over the line, my foot snagged something. I not only tripped, I BOUNCED off the ground. I felt like I was sliding into home base, grass and dirt flew into the air on impact. I fell face first into the ground. So, to go along with my now stained shirt and pants, I also had a mouth full of dirt and grass. A little debris in my eyes as well. Sexy, I know. When I shine, I go big or go home.

My crush, bless his heart, was just as embarrassed as I was.

“Are you okay,” he sounded mortified.

He pulled me up to standing position, where I continued to spit out grass and dirt. I nodded towards him as I tossed the flag to the ground.

​Needless to say—we never dated. Life’s hard. Apparently so is running.