The Day I Was Left Out

As hard as it may be to believe, I used to be a shy kid. It was probably a combination of the anxiety disorder and our family move from South Dakota to Maryland when I was seven years old. I went from a small Catholic school with about 20 kids in each grade to a massive public school with several hundred kids in each grade. It was somewhat overwhelming, and I basically just shut down. Thinking back on second and third grades, I honestly can't remember having friends. My brain, which is clearly trying to shield my fragile third-grade psyche from the devastation of reality is telling me, "of course you had friends!" but I can't, for the life of me, actually name a single one. Looks like that protective wall of false memories has done its job!

As a side note, I would like to mention that I "won" the Good Citizenship Award (like the consolation prize of boring, polite children - "Congratulations, you are the least disagreeable person in our class!") every year from Kindergarten through 5th grade. So I might not have had friends for a couple years, but at least they didn't all completely hate me. Right? (Shh, it's okay, Third-Grade Laura. Of course they liked you! How could they not like you? You ... had such long, straight hair! And ... you smiled quietly a lot! *Stifles self-esteem with false memories*)

Regardless, the point is that I did not have good friends in my third grade class. One incident in particular stands out as evidence that I was, in fact, an outcast (albeit, a friendly, polite, possibly easily forgettable one).

Although the school itself was large, we were assigned a "homeroom," which was our actual class, and in third grade, as far as I remember, no one switched for any classes (advanced math and language arts classes didn't start till 4th grade, I believe). So I'd been in the same "portable" classroom with the same 30 or so kids for at least 6 months at the time of this incident (our student body size had outgrown the actual school, so they set up about a dozen portable, temporary buildings outside the main building, on school grounds, to accommodate the excess children. We were only supposed to be there for a few months, but we ended up staying there the entire year.)

One Spring day, one of the "popular" (used as liberally as possible to refer to a third-grader) girls passed out invitations to her birthday party to every girl in class, except three of us. I don't know if her mom didn't make her invite all the girls, or if she chose not to give three of us invitations, but the selection process was as cruel as it was swift. One moment, we were returning from recess and settling in our seats, and the next, the Chosen Girls were tittering excitedly, as the rejects tried to not only discover what we were missing out on, but how we could have possibly fallen from the good graces of the beautiful, popular, Jessica.

I've always assumed I wasn't invited because I was shy and quiet. Boring people don't make the best party guests. One of the other girls not invited, Rachel, was also incredibly shy and boring. However, Rachel had a twin sister, Alexis, who was also in our class. And Alexis was invited. Rachel was, understandably, much more devastated about her exclusion than I was. We must learn at a young age the cruelty of other women.

It was the third uninvited girl, though, that made the true sting of the shunning felt. Katie. Poor Katie. Literally, Katie was from a lower-class family. I always felt very sorry for her, as all her clothes were old and worn, she often smelled funky, and the other kids were heartless in their teasing of her. Then again, she didn't help her case much by being one of those strange kids. You know the type. The awkward, weird ones who run up to the popular kids and start talking gibberish at them, because they're oblivious to the social hierarchy of school-aged cliques. They're the type who make the other nerd kids cringe, since we know we'll be associated with them, vicariously, simply for being nerds ourselves, even though we don't want anything to do with their type, either. They're giving us all a bad name.

But then Katie committed the single worst-imaginable in-school offense. She pooped her pants. In class. I don't know the circumstances, except that I was sitting next to her and can confirm that, in spite of her denials of the other children's harsh accusations, she did, in fact, poop in her pants. (Bizarrely, I was also sitting next to a boy in 4th grade who peed his pants. Maybe I have some terrible affect on people in my immediate vicinity, causing them to lose control of their bodily functions. But he had asked the teacher for permission to go to the bathroom, and she denied it. After several minutes, he asked again more urgently, and she again denied it. I, personally, think she should have gotten in serious trouble for making the poor guy sit there till he peed his pants, but, as far as I know, nothing ever happened to her.)

So here we were, lumped in the same group of social-rejects with a girl who pooped her pants. In the unrelentingly cruel world of elementary school social politics, evidently, being shy is just as critical a faux pas as defecating on oneself.

The party was on a Saturday, and the following Monday, I showed up for school, relieved because this traumatic exclusion was now behind us. Oh, how naive was I.

As the other girls in class filtered in and took their seats, not only were they excitedly talking about what an incredible time they'd had at Jessica's Birthday Party (or, as it became known, JBP; it was the social event of the YEAR), but each of them seemed to have donned a new necklace, and they were giddily comparing and showing them off to each other. How could it be that they all coincidentally bought strikingly similar necklaces over the weekend without any form of retail coordination?

I sat perfectly still in my desk, trying to eavesdrop to catch some sort of idea as to the origin of these necklaces. Then I began to notice - each necklace had a set of perfectly adorable beads in the shape of birds. All different colors, strung together amid classic, small necklace beads that brought out the shine and ideal form of each avian creation. Never had I longed for something more than to have my own bird-bead necklace. The minuteness of their beaks struck a chord in my third-grade being, calling out to me with undying desire.

All at once, the glistening birds and the snippets of eager over-the-weekend gossip combined in my brain and it dawned on me: the girls had all made these wearable works of art at JBP. And I also deduced that they had made a vow to wear them every day for the duration of the school year.

I could feel my will to live shattering about me as I looked down at my desk, pretending to go over my completed homework from the weekend in an attempt to hide my devastation. My life would never be complete. My soul felt crushed inside my bare-necked body.

Over the next few weeks, fewer and fewer girls still wore their bird necklaces every day, but envy continued to flutter in my heart every time I caught a glimpse of one. Eventually, third grade drew to a close, I was awarded my certificate of "Good Citizenshipness," and I spent the summer recovering from the painful social blows I'd been dealt.

Then fourth grade started. And who was in my class (besides the guy next to me who peed in his pants on the first day)? None other than Jessica. THE Jessica, of JBP infamy.

So I adopted a new life-approach to friends and being social. I got loud. I tried talking to people and laughing and various other tactics of basic human interaction (besides polite smiling, which I, clearly, had a monopoly on). Lo and behold, my new plan worked. As luck (or intricate planning and methodical social-ladder-climbing) would have it, after just a few weeks of fourth grade, I had befriended the one and only Jessica.

After playing together at nearly every recess, eventually the time came when she was obligated to invite me over to play at her house (although, I have to admit, I doubt I would have even tried to be friends with her if I didn't think there was a possibility that I could wriggle my way into her confidences, be invited to her house, and somehow manage to acquire my own bird necklace). My mom dropped me off, and we played normal fourth-grade girl things. After Barbies in her room, we walked around the neighborhood to spy on a boy in our grade who lived down the street. Then we came back to her house, had a snack, and she asked what else I wanted to do.

Ever aware of the rules of etiquette, I politely said, "I don't know, what do you want to do?" while skirting the obvious: make bird necklaces.

She suggested we play Twister.

Obligingly, I went downstairs with her to get out the Twister game, in spite of the cloud of anxiety closing in around me. I hate games of all kinds. It's not a fear of losing; it's more terror that I'll do something wrong. I'm not sure why it flares up so strongly when it comes to games, but I've always hated every single kind of game there is. They all fill me with overpowering anxiety (I actually can't play or even watch most video games; I get too anxious). Not exactly a two-player game, I was relieved when we found a small plastic bin sitting next to the Twister box.

"What's this?" I said, pointing to the box, already knowing in my heart what it was.

"Oh, those are my beads," she said casually. Then, with a stroke of psychic ingenuity, "do you want to make necklaces?"

Yes.

"Oh, sure, I guess." I could barely contain the excitement that tried to burst through face. Play cool, Laura. She'll suspect something if you start screaming about bird beads!

We opened the bin to discover small squares of neatly separated beads. Reds, yellows, blues, greens, some little dice beads... but no birds. No. F---ing. Birds.

I started stringing together random colors in no particular order. What's the point, if not to tie down a bird bead through the little hole that ran through its heart to forever tether it to my neck (and soul)?

Jessica was rambling about something. I couldn't concentrate on her tedium. I was too consumed with the twice-dashed hopes of a young, recently socially-revived fourth-grade girl.

I dug my fingers into the red beads again and stopped suddenly. There she was. Hidden among the scarlets, maroon, and fire engine reds. My very own bird bead. Left over, abandoned for nearly a year after the great fete that was JBP, the one remaining, glorious bird bead.

"You've come to me, Sasha," I whispered under my breath.

"Did you say something?"

"Uh, no," I contemplated stealing Sasha and sliding her secretively into my pocket. But what would Jessica think when I wore the necklace to school and she recognized the rogue, rosey bird, fluttering gently between my collarbones, perfectly flattering my non-existent bust-line?

"Hey, I found this little bird bead. Could I use it?"

"Haha, sure!" Jessica said, barely acknowledging the significance of this forever flightless symbol of my restoration of hope in humanity. "I got those last year for my Birthday Party, haha. I thought we'd used them all. We all made bird necklaces, haha. But I guess you can make one now, too! Haha!"

Laugh it up, Bitch.

I didn't stay friends with Jessica after fourth grade (we were in different fifth grade homerooms, which is practically the same thing as moving to different countries, learning different languages, and being forbidden by our parents to associate with one another, or else). But I believe the bird necklace is still in my closet at my dad's house. I'll have to remember to get it the next time I visit him. I guess the old saying holds true: Make new friends, but keep the old (except Jessica); some are silver, and some... are birds.

The Day a Dog-Monster Ate My Childhood

I've always had a knack for picking just the right name for things. Not only do I have an affinity for naming everything I own, but I've always been good at choosing just the right, most fitting name.

For example, my favorite childhood stuffed animal was a little sherbet-orange colored teddy bear with the most perfect, shiny, jelly-bean-esque nose. I thought long and hard for the ideal name for him. He was such a loyal friend. Always there for me, in the basement, in my room, we'd even go outside together. After much consideration, I decided the perfect name for him would be simple. Catchy. One that really spoke to his true nature both as a bear and as my life-long friend.

I named him Orange Bear.

Oh, how I loved Orange Bear. I even loved him after his perfect, shiny, jelly-bean-esque nose fell off and rolled under the water heater, never to be seen again. He was disfigured, and I still loved him. Now that is a true testament to our lasting relationship.

One day, my parents decided to have a picnic for us in our backyard. I'm not entirely sure why, or what purpose it served, but there we were, sitting on a quilt in the middle of our wide-open yard, enjoying the sunny day and each other's company.

At the time, we were living in South Dakota, just outside the city limits of Sioux Falls. We lived in a small development, but right past our street there were huge, loping grassy hills with a vast expanse of nothing but raceway for the terrible South Dakota winds. You could see these plains from our backyard, and it gave the feeling of really being out in the country, not immediately on the other side of a busy highway (like we actually were).

So there we were, minding our own business, in our own backyard, having a joyful picnic. Just my parents, my older brother, me, and, of course, Orange Bear. Suddenly, my dad looked up just in time to see a monstrously-sized black dog bounding toward us. Its hand towel-sized pink tongue lolling sloppily out the side of its mouth between sparkling white, dagger teeth. Its gigantic paws hit the ground with each running step like horse's hooves, pounding the dirt and sending chills down our spines with each deep vibration of the Earth's crust. The bottomless blackness of its murderous eyes cut through our very souls. It was headed directly for us.

In a panic, my mom tried to get us children into the house. "RUUUUUN!!" she'd screamed, convinced this clearly rabid buffalo-sized dog was about to consume her children in one gulp.

But we were frozen on our spots. Minds entirely blank from awe and the impending, undeniable black death that was closing in on us.

Closer and closer the black demon dog from Hell came. In a matter of seconds, he was upon us. I could hear nothing but the deafening pounding from my own heart making my ears throb, and the bone-chilling panting breaths of the dog-monster as it closed in on me.

And in the blink of an eye, it was over. The black dog-monster was past us, running back in the direction he had come from. The direction of Hell.

We all looked at each other as nervous laughter escaped. What a close call! And to think, we were scared of the dog! It just wanted to say hi! And here we were. Everyone was fine and dandy. As good as new! Mom and Dad smiled knowingly at each other - they'd successfully averted a disaster. What good parents they were! Brian and I shared in their joy - what obedient and well-behaved children we must be to have escaped the clutches of such a terrible dog-monster from Hell! I turned to share my joyous relief with Orange Bear. But to my absolute horror, Orange Bear was missing. His spot on the quilt was entirely and infinitely empty.

I started screaming for him, "ORANGE BEAR! ORANGEBEAAAAAR!!" Once again, my dad's keen eyes served us well - he caught a glimpse of orange hanging out of the dog-monsters mouth, just as he turned the corner and was gone from our sights for good.

Devastated and frantic, I screamed at my parents that we had to get Orange Bear back. My life would never be complete again without him. What kind of a life was worth living in an Orange Bear-less world, anyway?

Once again, my parents sprang into action. They calmly and rationally told me that we could go around and ask the neighbors if they know who the black dog belongs to. Clearly, this was not a satisfactory answer to me, as that black demon monster from Hell couldn't belong to a HUMAN. It's from HELL, you guys.

After picking up our picnic paraphernalia, we headed out as a family to track down the dog-monster's owner (or his demonic master of torture and all things death). Fortunately, the first house we stopped at believed they knew where the black dog lived (duh, Hell). We headed over to the house she had pointed to and continued our search and rescue efforts.

A kindly-looking older man opened the door and welcomed us inside. He was pleasant enough (for a Dark Overlord from the Pits of Hell). He told us that he did, in fact own a black dog (Warrior of Satan). But unfortunately, he hadn't seen any stuffed orange bear. The dog had come home not too long ago, and he hadn't noticed that he'd been carrying anything.

The man offered us a drink, and my parents sat down to chat with him pleasantly enough. I, on the other hand, was dying inside. While we were sitting here chatting up this stranger (a possible Dark Overlord), Orange Bear was out there somewhere. Probably being tortured by Satan's minions to reveal all his deepest secrets. The devastation at the realization that I might never see Orange Bear again began to wash over me.

But then, out of the corner of my eye, I saw something that made my heart stop and my blood run cold. A tuft of sherbet-orange colored hair. Sticking out from under the bench of a seat in the next room.

The realization came rushing to me all at once. This man. Was. LYING. He HAD Orange Bear! He was being held prisoner in a wooden bench!! His mouth was probably covered in duct tape, or he'd have screamed for us so we knew he was there. The man was trying to fool us into believing his feeble story by offering my parents coffee. His plan was flawless. Except for Orange Bear's sly attempt at communication. The man must have not seen how Orange Bear squeezed just his one tuft of fur under the cover at the last second. Genius, Orange Bear, simply genius!

I hurriedly whispered to my mom, "There's Orange Bear! I see him!! IN THE BENCH!!" At first she tried to hush me; after all, she was trying to enjoy her bribery coffee and misleading chitchat. But my urgency got through to her. She looked over and recognized Orange Bear's fuzzy butt flare of desperation.

"Um, excuse me," she peeped in quietly, "I hate to be nosy, but my daughter" (thanks for the betrayal, Mom) "thinks she sees her teddy bear over in that bench there. Do you mind if we look?"

Embarrassed, the man stands up and rushes to the bench (all his evil plots unfurling at his feet), throws open the lid, and there, in all his nose-less glory, is Orange Bear. In tact. It looks like we got there just in time to save him before the rigorous torture sessions began.

"Oh dear. My wife must have gotten this from the dog and put it in here without telling me! I'm terribly sorry." A likely story, Mr. Blown-Cover Overlord!! Where is this convenient "wife" of which you speak now?! Oh, she just HAPPENED to run to the store after locking Orange Bear in a dungeon and "forgetting" to tell you? The coincidences are stacking up against you, sir!

As he handed Orange Bear back to me (seemingly reluctantly), I thought I could almost hear his Dark Overlord thoughts drilling through me, "this isn't over yet, girlie. My black Dog-Monster of Doom knows where you live - and we know how to get the answers we want!"

I clutched Orange Bear to me and held him tight. I'd never let him out of my grasp again. At least not till the next best friend stuffed animal came along. But who could possibly replace Orange Bear in the ranks of loyalty and trust? He hadn't even spilled our secrets to the Dark Overlord or his Dog-Monster of Doom. And yet... Blue Panda and Brownie Dog have their good qualities, too... and they both still have their noses.

The Day I Met a(n O)Possum

Yesterday, I saw an opossum. For most people, this would entail little more than the thought, "oh, there's a possum. Wonder why it's out during the day?" And then they'd return to their normal (probably significantly more productive than mine) day. But not for me. Seeing a possum is a world-view-altering experience. I'm still feeling high off the excitement of seeing the possum.

We have terrible dog owners for neighbors. Not only do they leave the dogs out all day and night (every day and night), but they are also impervious to the incessant barking of the dogs (a lab and two basset hounds). Even at 3:45am, while the dogs bark for 20 straight minutes, these people don't hear them. The rest of the neighborhood does, but not the only people who could stop the incessant barking. They sleep blissfully on.

For me, the barking of these dogs is comparable to being locked alone in a room made entirely of chalkboards with that guy from the Guinness Book of World Records with the longest fingernails ever. And he is a verbose hand-talker.

Anyway, the dogs went berserk yesterday as I was putting Boy down for his nap. My dogs started barking, too, so I knew something had to be happening, since my ubiquitous use of bark collars has terrified them into only barking when absolutely necessary. I came down to beat my dogs' spirits into submission once again with their red collars of imposed self-restraint. I assumed they were being taunted by the squirrels that run along our back fence - an occurrence that leads to at least one daily fit of barking. As I stormed outside, collars in hand, I saw her.

Sitting on the back fence, right at the corner of my yard and the yard with the bad dogs was the cutest possum I've ever seen. Granted, I haven't seen a lot of possums, so it wasn't a very tight competition. But she was cute.

I froze, torn between my inherent desire to run at her, flailing in excitement, grab her off the fence, put a tiny bonnet on her head, name her Posey Possum, and live with her happily ever after as the most adorable pet in the world while I parade her around in her lace-filled carriage and she waves graciously with her adorable possum hands at all our adoring fans, and the nagging of my sub-conscious, in the voice of my husband, telling me NOT to hug a wild animal. That's how you get rabies and die.

Eventually, the greatly deprived and much neglected logical part of my brain broke through the screaming battle of heart vs husband-voiced-subconscious. "GET THE CAMERA!" Of course! I ran frantically back to the house, grabbed the camera, and ran with an urgency I haven't felt since I was a child, running through the woods behind my house from the swamp monster that was surely coming to eat my soul. I got as close as I dared - about 10 feet away from her, with husband-subconscious screaming "RABIESRABIESRABIES" at my entire body. After a few tentative pictures, I paused to study her clearly rabid behavior.

From my mental archives of forestry fauna, I dug for any scrap of knowledge of possums (or is it opossums? Are they the same thing? Does this mean everything I think about about them is potentially wrong? Do I actually know anything about them?). Yes, no, probably, and probably not. But I did recall that they should be nocturnal (maybe?), so before I could build up my courage (and stifle husband's voice) enough to get closer, I dashed back in to the infinite knowledge of the interwebs.

As it turns out, (o)possums are, in fact, usually nocturnal. But they're also highly resistant to rabies, and mommy possums frequently come out during the day in spring and summer so as to forage more food for their babies. Considering in all this time since I'd discovered the possum she hadn't moved at all, I was beginning to suspect she might not be rabid, after all.

I made my way back to her (this time venturing within 5 feet, in spite of the incessant warnings of husband-subconscious) and studied her behavior for signs of rabies. Was she foaming at the mouth? No, but her adorable little pink nose was running. Was she aggressive? No, she hadn't moved since I'd seen her, even her head - she just stared at the bad dogs (who have been barking nonstop this entire time). Was she acting unusual for a possum? How the hell should I know what usual possum behavior is? Until two minutes ago, I didn't know if she was a possum or an opossum! Upon review, I decided she was most likely not rabid. I ventured closer to capture her on film.

Posey Possum - the Cutest Possum that Ever There Was


As I studied her adorable little possum hands and her precious little running pink possum nose, I was overcome with a desire to help her and save her from the bad dogs. I knew in my heart that she was a mother possum, and she was risking her life for her babies. We shared an understanding of new motherhood and mutual respect. Surely she would provide aid to me if our situations were reversed (flash to a world with gigantic possums living in our houses and me squatting on the top of a fence, shaking in fear with snot running down my face). Okay, maybe she wouldn't. Instead I opted for talking to her in a soothing voice and taking my dogs inside so as to grant her free and safe passage across my yard, if she so chose.

She sat on top of the fence for over an hour. Finally, for some reason, the bad dogs stopped barking at her (I suspect the neighbor called them inside to eat, because surely he wasn't bothered by the barking, as it had continued, literally without pause for longer than an hour - if it were going to bother him, it would have long before an hour), and she decided she could make her way safely along the fence once more.

As pleased as I was to see her go along her way, I rather regret it - she lacked a certain grace I assumed to be inherent to her as she stumbled awkwardly along the top of the fence, her creepy over-sized rat tail cocked crookedly and stiffly out behind her for balance. She lost a touch of her cuteness in that moment. But I can look past the fumbling - after all, I've been a new mom, and we share this universal and soul-penetrating commonality. We're in this together.

Husband-subconscious chimes in: "This is why animals in zoos always try to kill you. You think you have shared mutual understanding; they think you're an easy target."