A mother snaps a picture of her son, who sits with his head averted. He doesn’t look at her. But even if he did turn his head, he couldn’t see her through a thick curtain of dark hair. “Oh, come on,” she says. “Smile.” The boy doesn’t budge.
Finally she gives up and bounces over to where I’m standing. “I told him I would do this,” she said, gesturing to her camera. “I’m a scrap booker.” All of us mothers standing in the corner nod in understanding. Though I’m not a scrap booker myself, I am a blogger, which is almost as bad. As such, I can’t help looking at every situation as a possible story. And to this mother, a day at school is definitely scrapbook page material. I actually considered bringing along my camera too, but figured that would be going too far. Better to scribble notes all day than to be Mama Paparazzi. Plus, I’m trying really hard to raise my child so he doesn’t end up in therapy because of something I’ve done. (It might be too late for that, though.)
It’s during math that I finally break down and use the bathroom. All morning (all two hours of it, so far, though it seems like the day should be about over now) it felt like I needed to go. But I just went! I kept on thinking. Then I remembered that I usually have to pee about five times every morning after I drink my Big Gulp of water. I’m almost always home in the morning, so I don’t notice how many times I have to go. This is another reason why I cannot get a real job. I’d have to find someone who’d give me a desk next to a private bathroom, preferably with a fan for cover noise and a small, well-stocked library. This may be the reason I have yet to find my perfect job.
On my way to the potty, I see a swine flu poster. This makes me nervous. School is, after all, one big germ pit, teeming not only with hormones, but also with invisible, disease-causing microbes. I do not trust any of these kids to wash their hands properly. But when you gotta go, you gotta go.
Surprisingly, the bathroom is much cleaner than my junior high bathroom. My junior high bathrooms were were plastered with lumps of wet paper towel wads stuck to the ceiling. But this one had none of that. Nevertheless, I followed my germ-free practices.
Use the pinky to open doors.
Do not sit down, ever. Crouch.
Read inscriptions on stall, but do not run your fingers over
the lettering.
Flush with foot, not hand.
Scrub hands for at least 20 seconds, if not more.
Use elbow to dispense paper towels.
Back in the classroom, the math teacher calls on a girl to explain an equation written on the white board. About two seconds into her explanation I’m lost. While she blathers on about X and Y, I’m mesmerized by her foot swinging into the aisle. The girl is wearing brown suede boots with a fringe of fur on top. I wonder where she might have bought them and if I could pull off wearing them, too. That’s when I see another girl take off her sweatshirt and let it drop to the floor. I grip my pen tightly, trying to stop myself from snapping, “Pick that up!” Today I am supposed to be a fly on the wall, not a mother. I am not supposed to embarrass or harass my son or anyone else. At least not out loud.
Another girl sitting next to me hasn’t done a blasted thing all period but scratch a few words in her notebook, tap her foot against the desk in front of her, and examine her nails. She wears a plaid shirt over a black t-shirt, low-slung black jeans tight on her skinny legs, big black sneakers, and an ipod tucked into her pocket. Her pale face is framed by long, straight, black hair. She reminds me of a character from that 1960’s series, The Addams Family.
I want to lean over and say, “You look just like Morticia.” I’d snap my fingers and hum the theme song. But I think the reference will be lost on her. She looks like what we used to call Stoners. Only she doesn’t smell like she bathes in nicotine and smokes smelly socks for breakfast. Yet.
The teacher is talking this whole time, and I consider that he might mistake my incessant note taking for actual comprehension of his subject. But he would be wrong. I’m hearing words I’ve not heard in years, like negative inverse, variables, integers-- things I didn’t understand when I was in seventh grade and still don’t understand now. A thick fog descends upon my brain. There was a reason why I immediately forgot algebra when I graduated from high school. It’s totally useless, for one. And not so interesting to discuss for another. With math, there’s only one interpretation of the information. You can't argue any other interpretations because there aren't any. And unlike literature, math offers no hidden meanings or applications to the human condition.
When Morticia/Stoner Girl stands up, she’s as skinny as a black licorice whip. Her pants are held precariously aloft her slim hips with a wide white belt. I notice this because she does the classic teenager pant pull-up/pull-down as she saunters out of the classroom. Morticia grabs the waistband of her pants, tugs slightly, then carefully pushes her pants down to within a centimeter of where they were so that the material in the crotch hangs almost to her knees, forcing her to take baby steps down the hallway. She looks ridiculous.
This may sound like a criticism, and that’s only because it is. But one day Morticia will agree with me. Sometimes I think it would be nice if we could see ourselves from the perspective of our future self. If someone had told me how awful my 38-year-old self would think my 13-year-old self looked in dark foundation, bright green eye shadow, and frosted pink lipstick, I think I would have made some changes. I would have skipped the pink leg warmers for sure. I wouldn’t have teased my bangs so unmercifully. I would not have permed my hair. I would not have pegged my pants at the ankle. And I would definitely not have worn black nylons with a white dress and white plastic pumps.
Yet when I’m seventy-five, will I look back at me at thirty-eight and wonder why I wore overalls so much? Will I shake my head at how often I let my hair get to the Janis Joplin stage, all frizzy at the edges and shapelessly long, with coarse strands of grey sprouting from my scalp? Perhaps I will be embarrassed by how often I wore running shoes instead of cute shoes. And maybe I’ll shudder at how I stopped wearing foundation even though my complexion was less than luminous.
But then again, maybe when I’m seventy-five maybe I just won't care anymore. I can only hope.
PS
I have been watching Calvin for two hours now. He has not done anything alarming, like kiss a girl or pull out a flask of whiskey from his backpack. So far, this surveillance has turned up no clues into his psyche, other than the realization that he’s grown two inches since we bought him the jeans he’s wearing.
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