The Worst Day of Fifth Grade
Maybe I've been sleeping too much recently, but my insomnia has been made worse by a specific memory lolling around in my brain.
In fifth grade, I think we studied space because we definitely had a project where we were supposed to make a space station. My current procrastination habit was as bad or worse in 1997, so I diligently put the work-intensive project off until the night before. I enlisted my dad's help, but either the directions were poorly written or I left them at school. So we improvised. The result: the Abomination Space Station. If I were as witty ten years ago as I am today, I may have had a chance in hell. Alas, that was not the case.
Together we crafted a space station that consisted of a bouncy ball, generic inflated rubber toy-store variety, forced into a slightly oblong shape by careful duct tape application. This, we spray painted a very ugly green and left outside to dry. I suppose it looked like a space station.
I grabbed it from behind the garage the next morning, the day my project was due, ready to take it to school. But the cold weather during the night had left the whole thing with an adhesive coating somewhere between Post-it note and Scotch tape intensity. Left with no choice (having not yet discovered the trick of staying home from school when I hadn't lived up to my responsibilities), I grabbed the orb, called my dad, and made him drive me to school.
I hid the monstrosity in the coat closet, sacrificing my own coat to its sticky surface. Horrified, I examined the other students' projects. They had all made space stations you could see inside. My best friend's wood plank and lego-people Mir masterpiece was hailed as the best project in the class, the others came in a close second, and mine was so dead-last it couldn't be seen with a telescope.
Tears and mortification poured forth as the teacher asked me what in the world I'd been thinking. Hopefully I stammered some good BS about how it resembled a space station--oblong for aerodynamics. Truthfully, I barely remember the events of the day at all...my defense mechanism ridden brain is very good at blocking bad memories. I wish I could say I brushed my bangs out of my eyes, pushed up my hoot-owl glasses and took refuge with a good horse book in the library. But honestly, I can only imagine wiping my tear-stained face with the extra-long sleeve of my extra-long sweater and asking to call my mother so I could go home. I got a D on the project and spent the rest of the grading period terrified that I would ruin my academic future with a D in Science on my report card.
When the fateful day came, many agonizing weeks later, my kind teacher (probably concerned for my sanity) had thrown academic integrity to the wind and given me an A for the term. That was probably when I grabbed my well-worn copy of Flicka and started erasing memories. But at least I made it through.
Besides, I redeemed myself later in the year when we studied indigenous Central American cultures with a poster that included a detailed rendering of an Aztec human sacrifice. Mel Gibson ain't got nothin' on me.
In fifth grade, I think we studied space because we definitely had a project where we were supposed to make a space station. My current procrastination habit was as bad or worse in 1997, so I diligently put the work-intensive project off until the night before. I enlisted my dad's help, but either the directions were poorly written or I left them at school. So we improvised. The result: the Abomination Space Station. If I were as witty ten years ago as I am today, I may have had a chance in hell. Alas, that was not the case.
Together we crafted a space station that consisted of a bouncy ball, generic inflated rubber toy-store variety, forced into a slightly oblong shape by careful duct tape application. This, we spray painted a very ugly green and left outside to dry. I suppose it looked like a space station.
I grabbed it from behind the garage the next morning, the day my project was due, ready to take it to school. But the cold weather during the night had left the whole thing with an adhesive coating somewhere between Post-it note and Scotch tape intensity. Left with no choice (having not yet discovered the trick of staying home from school when I hadn't lived up to my responsibilities), I grabbed the orb, called my dad, and made him drive me to school.
I hid the monstrosity in the coat closet, sacrificing my own coat to its sticky surface. Horrified, I examined the other students' projects. They had all made space stations you could see inside. My best friend's wood plank and lego-people Mir masterpiece was hailed as the best project in the class, the others came in a close second, and mine was so dead-last it couldn't be seen with a telescope.
Tears and mortification poured forth as the teacher asked me what in the world I'd been thinking. Hopefully I stammered some good BS about how it resembled a space station--oblong for aerodynamics. Truthfully, I barely remember the events of the day at all...my defense mechanism ridden brain is very good at blocking bad memories. I wish I could say I brushed my bangs out of my eyes, pushed up my hoot-owl glasses and took refuge with a good horse book in the library. But honestly, I can only imagine wiping my tear-stained face with the extra-long sleeve of my extra-long sweater and asking to call my mother so I could go home. I got a D on the project and spent the rest of the grading period terrified that I would ruin my academic future with a D in Science on my report card.
When the fateful day came, many agonizing weeks later, my kind teacher (probably concerned for my sanity) had thrown academic integrity to the wind and given me an A for the term. That was probably when I grabbed my well-worn copy of Flicka and started erasing memories. But at least I made it through.
Besides, I redeemed myself later in the year when we studied indigenous Central American cultures with a poster that included a detailed rendering of an Aztec human sacrifice. Mel Gibson ain't got nothin' on me.
Comments