Getting in Trouble

I am currently on a cleanse. I’m taking notes each day on how that’s going, and I had originally planned for that to be this week’s blog post, but then I realized that doesn’t make much sense because I’m only on day 7 of 10. So then I was trying to figure out what to write about instead when I came across a document on my computer titled NaNoWriMo.docx.

Back in November of 2019, my mom and I decided to participate in National Novel Writing Month, AKA NaNoWriMo. If I remember correctly, our goal was to write for 30 minutes a day. I apparently didn’t make it very far because the entries in this document stop at November 4th (oops), but the entry I wrote on November 1st reads like it was intended to be a blog post. Soooo, lucky me :)

Good looking out, 2019 Natalie! Don’t mind if I do…

November 1, 2019: Trouble

This post is a real treat because I’m about to share stories that I have LITERALLY never shared with anyone before. Because I was so ashamed. I’ve never handled “getting in trouble” very well, and it was especially bad when I was little and actually gave a hoot. And so I present:

Times I Got In Trouble and I Was So Upset I Never Told Anyone

Second Grade

The year was 1998, and I was out with my class and Coach Stockton (from the school - IYKYK) for gym. We had two coaches in elementary school: Coach Stockton and The Other Coach. Everybody LOVED Coach Stockton. He was the shit. I’m pretty sure everyone loved The Other Coach too, but he wore black socks. My dad, for whatever reason, has a thing against black socks and always talked about how weird it was that The Other Coach wore them. And elementary school me was like, “Yeah! Makes total sense! Coach Stockton is way better than The Other Coach.”

Anyway, Coach Stockton being The Good One made it that much worse when I got in trouble.

We were playing a game where you had to run from one side of the field to the other while the other team tried to peg you with dodgeballs. (Kids are so soft today. I bet they’re not allowed to play games like that anymore.) If you got hit with a ball, you had to go to jail (AKA sit out for 3 minutes). I don’t remember what the ultimate goal was, but that’s pretty much all you need to know for the story.

I was running across the field and felt a ball hit my leg. I immediately panicked because attention was my LEAST FAVORITE thing. (Funny how things change.) I didn’t want to have to run to jail in front of all my classmates because I was worried I might trip or something and make a fool of myself with everyone watching. So I pretended like I didn’t get hit.

Coach Stockton was no fool.

He called me out for cheating and made me stay in jail an extra 10 minutes because “cheaters get longer sentences.” I was so upset and humiliated, and it was the talk of the courtyard later that day at lunch.

I guess I would have gotten much less attention if I had just gone to damn jail when I was supposed to. Hindsight is 20/20.

Fourth Grade

I was so jazzed that I got to be in The Classroom Across the Street for fourth grade. I felt so COOL not going to the “regular elementary school.”

“I’m over there in that classroom,” I’d say.

One day, my friend Rebekah and I were running an errand together, and as we returned, we came up to a Do Not Walk sign. She said, “No cars are coming. Let’s just cross.”

All of the safety training we had been through came rushing back to me. I knew we weren’t supposed to cross, but we were sharing an umbrella, and I didn’t want to get left in the rain. So I ran after Rebekah across the street, and then we got yelled at by my fourth grade teacher.

It was so upsetting.

Eighth Grade

Middle school is super effing awkward, and this incident just made the whole thing so much worse. Looking back, it was SO not a big deal, but I built it up in my head.

I’m going to get kicked out of school! I’ll never get a job! I’m such a loser!

We were sitting in technology class, and the teacher did a screen takeover to show us something on our individual computers. I wasn’t used to this technology, so I panicked when I saw the mouse start moving and quickly hit the Escape button, which apparently just cancels the screen takeover.

He talked through what he was doing, and as he was talking, I followed along, clicking where he said to click. He didn’t realize what had happened, and I didn’t realize that I was supposed to just be watching him take over the screen, so when he heard a mouse clicking, he got annoyed.

“Whoever is clicking their mouse, stop right now.”

I probably should have caught on that I was doing something wrong, but I didn’t understand what was going on, so I continued clicking along as he demonstrated what we were supposed to be doing.

Eventually, he realized I was the one clicking my mouse and made me go stand in the corner of the classroom with my back to everyone. It was then that I realized my misunderstanding, and he thought I was just being some annoying bitch clicking her mouse to be funny.

I went home and wrote him a letter apologizing for the incident, but then I never had the balls to give it to him. I spent the rest of eighth grade cowering any time I entered his classroom or saw him in the halls.

Anyway, that’s where I left off on November 1, 2019. Thanks for the content, Pre-Pandemic Nat.