Friday, July 18, 2008

detention was my middle name

In elementary school, I was always in detention for STUPID THINGS. All detention meant was that I had to stay after class for an additional 15 minutes. It was okay because my mom was always 15 minutes late in picking me up so as I was walking out of detention for STUPID THINGS, a big red Cherokee Jeep with a tiny Asian lady (my oma!) with big permed hair and sunglasses would be peering over the steering wheel…waiting for me.

Example of STUPID THINGS:

I was in love with Donnie Corn. I don't know why I was in love with Donnie Corn because he had opaque white skin and orange hair. ORANGE. In fact, he looked like this:




Very appropriate that his name was Donnie Corn, now that I think about it. Donnie took advantage of my brains. Meaning, he loved to ask me questions when he didn't want to think for himself.


Donnie: Psst. Irene - how do you spell "cow"?


Irene: "um, REALLY?" (why do I have a crush on you, Donnie? why why why, you are so DUMB!) "CEE. OH. DOUBLEYOU. COW".


Donnie: Rad. Now, how do you spell "dog"?


Irene: leave me alone! I'm going to get in trouble. Ok fine, it's "DEE OH GEE. DOG".


Donnie: Ok, smartypants...how about RAT?


Irene: "S-M-A-R-T-Y-P-A-N-T-S"



Thing is - I wasn't being cheeky. I really thought Donnie was asking me how to spell smartypants and I was THRILLED that he had graduated to polysyllabic words!! I practically sang it to him. SMARTYPANTS!! LA LA LA!


TEACHER: Irene, I've already asked you once. SHUT YOUR TRAP. You're close to getting detention.


Irene: Sorry, Teacher. (sad Irene - I was always getting in trouble).


But Donnie was looking back at me expectantly and urgently. It nearly broke my heart. So I peeled a piece of masking tape that was holding my name card to the front of my desk and wrote, "R-A-T." Rat. I rolled it up into a little ball and flicked it off my desk towards Donnie.



Except.

It hit Teacher SQUARE IN THE MIDDLE OF THE EYES.

Teacher took the masking tape ball, unrolled it, and read out loud, "ARE.AY.TEE. RAT".

I had detention for 2 hours that day.