Third Grade

Ah, here we go: welcome to the year my anxiety level skyrocketed so much that I no longer stood out to my teachers for charm and sass and was instead recognized right away for being wound a bit too tightly.  Case in point-- this was the year I socked a perfectly lovely boy, my best friend, Grant, right in the mouth at the school lunch table for having the gall to kiss me on the cheek.  Just to further illustrate how perfectly inoffensive, and in all ways tender Grant was, he later grew up to attend the University of Texas at the same time I was there, and after evidently spending weeks being too shy to approach me, finally did and revealed that he played the guitar, and was majoring in Humanities or Philosophy (something soul-searching and profound, I recall, while my own was "fucking English-- I'm going to be so useless.")  He was also teaching blind kids to swim, which I found out by running into him at a local pool since again, he was too classy to mention this, and oh, he was also incredibly hot.  This is the kind of guy I punched.

The Grant-punching incident led directly to my third grade teacher, Mrs. Garcia, taking me aside one day to explain to me that I needed to "hang loose" like a monkey.  To illustrate this concept, a couple of days later she brought me a neon green stuffed monkey doll with overly long arms and velcro on its hands so it could hug a variety of different things, including me.  Evidently I was the kind of kid whose potent anxiety haunts you and follows you to the toy store.  I've always remembered that act of kindness, but unfortunately, I think Mrs. Garcia would look at me tonight and shake her head: I am on my third glass of wine and am trying to figure out why my type A fighter pilot husband can't seem to understand why I feel that being a stay-at-home mom and non-writing writer puts us on unequal footing in all questions financial.  How's that for a rhetorical bomb?  Bla-DOW!  Moving on... third grade now making all kinds of sense...

The nightmare of my teeth continued this year, and on a family outing, I fell over a small waterfall and got washed a ways downriver, prompting a breathless retelling in sober reporter-voice in an essay prompt at school.  I was beginning to get strokes for my writing by this time, and had set my heart briefly on being some kind of evening news anchor, so I peppered the account liberally with terms like "allegedly" and "quote, unquote" written out just like that.  I couldn't figure out what made Mrs. Garcia laugh about my tales from the front lines of personal disaster, but I figured it at least proved she was listening, even if she was incapable of truly understanding the danger I had faced.

Fourth grade's up next: the year I had a teacher named after an improvised prison weapon, Ms. Shank, and boy, did she live up to the idea of sudden retribution.  Also: hello, crippling math anxiety!

What do you remember from third grade?