I played hard in the Battle of the Books
I was in the sort of mood yesterday where everything I did recalled a memory from my childhood. During a particularly boring moment of adult responsibility, I was adding up bill payments on a calculator when I had a flashback of myself in junior high math class. In this class, I had been seated at a table with two of the most popular girls from the next grade, as well as a guy from my grade who was super cute and lived in a swanky house. I’d always been good at math, but this was such a high concentration of cool that I didn’t know if I could carry on. To fit in, I knew I had to play up something about myself I was proud of, a thing like my remarkable talent for bubble letters.*
I started writing everything on my math homework in bubble letters, except for the actual problems whose answers I made sure were neatly enclosed in smart rectangles. One day before class I was executing the hardest of the letters, the killer combination of M and S from the word “problems,” when Popular Girl #1 took notice. “Wow,” she said. I relaxed the grip I had on my pencil, hoping she’d ask me to write her name. “Hey,” she continued, “your thumbs are really long.” She turned to Popular Girl #2. “Aren’t her thumbs long?” By then I had put my pencil down, and was awkwardly holding out my hands. “All of her fingers are way long,” said Popular Girl #2, holding out her own thumbs. Because they were who they were, their observations made me both embarrassed and absurdly proud. “I play the violin,” I said, “and the piano, too.” As I wracked my brain for something more fascinating to say, my crush, having since tuned into the conversation, offered up the idea that I could probably play the guitar. I stuttered that yeah, maybe I could, and then it was time for class to start. All through the hour I imagined myself entering high school knowing how to play guitar and playing the songs at parties that everybody liked, but when it was time to leave after our quiz, I looked up to say goodbye to an empty table. Nobody asked me to write their name or to try on their mood rings, and eventually our class split up into new table groups. I ended up sitting next to a girl I’d known since kindergarten, who, while a bigmouth, could write her name in bubble cursive.
Remembering this so suddenly yesterday made me remember other instances with tender embarrassment, like how during that same year, I would wear my Battle of the Books t-shirt even on days we didn’t have competitions. It was entirely too big, and bland white with navy blue lettering, but I loved that shirt because I loved to read. Even if I couldn’t be popular or play cool musical instruments, I was never embarrassed by my books. Plus, my long fingers always made it easy to hold even the bigger hardbacks open with one hand, while I ate snacks with the other.
* I love that a how-to page for bubble letters exists on the internet. Also, one of the “tips” there is that “a smaller bubble letter sign could be just the thing your math notes need,” so apparently I was right on the money after all.
I wish I had more memories of middle school that were that sweetly melancholy. Most of mine are just devastatingly awkward and glum.
This post is definitely an argument for never throwing your blogs out. In another twenty years, this memory’ll be a bit fuzzier and you’ll be a better person if you’re helped to remember it. :)
I have a ton of those moments that I can never seem to let go. Like the time I had to sit at the front of the bus with our assistant teacher during our 5th grade field trip, because nobody asked me to be their seat partner ;/ At least I had my books!