The Sneaky Whirlpool of Bad Driving

Everyday after school, I drive two seventh graders to their bus stop.  These two seventh graders happen to be acutely intelligent and therefore, my smallish brain has difficulty understanding most of the topics they discuss.  The first time I met them, they talked for the entire fifteen minutes about carbon dioxide and its many effects on the world today.  While they are both geniuses, an elite sense of awkward comes with the territory.

The car rides SEEM to be alright until I am left alone with Lori, who is not easy for me to communicate with.  We normally sit in silence, which is fine until one of us makes a desperate attempt at breaking the giant hunk of awkward filling the car. 

These attempts usually fail and we are again left in a comma of uncomfortable conversation and an overwhelming depression about our lack of social skills.

However, when Colin joins us on the car rides to the bus stop, I sometimes collapse into what I like to call the "Sneaky Whirlpool of Bad Driving."

This normally happens after a long day of tests at school, a severe lack of food in my belly, or one of those days where you start off looking nice, then you get in your car and you realize you've have something in your teeth all day and no one thought it would be nice to mention it to you.

I try to put on a nice smile for the kids, but this fails as soon as Colin opens his mouth.

And while most of his rants make little or no sense, the noise begins to annoy me.  And Lori is just creepily sitting in the back seat.

And then Colin begins to sing. And I panic.

At this point the cycle has begun and I am in no way able to return to my previous easy going state.  My cool is gone and I begin to blame the world around me for the bubble of awkward lurking in my car.  

I begin running over stop signs

And pedestrians...

We finally make it to the bus stop where the kids merrily wave goodbye and head off on their way,

While I am left behind to wallow in self pity over the path of destruction I have left in my wake

That One Time I Was Homeless

When I lived in Houston, I tended to me quite an active little child.  As I grew up, however, this trait slowly, actually no, very quickly, ran as far away from me as possible.

Well anyways, as a little kid, I was extremely active, but as it happened, this particular day was very VERY hot.  Seeing as the normal temperature in Houston, Texas was typically around the same temperature as Hell, it was hard for any day to be particularly hotter than the next.  This day, however, seemed as though Hell was going through a heat wave...while wearing heavy winter jackets. 

So, I was lying on my bed, with all the fans blowing and trying to cool off. Totally content.  

My mother had been down stairs in the kitchen, and I guess, happened to look outside, only to notice that her daughter was not happily zig zagging around on her Razor Scooter as usual.

She hoofed it up the stairs

This comment was extremely hurtful to my little 10 year old self and probably provided some physiological damage.

But then I have a brilliant idea!

I would run away.  I didn't deserve this crap.

Yes.

Brilliant.

There was a park down the street from my house called Pumpkin Park.  It was called this because there was a large pumpkin carriage, but no one was allowed in this carriage anymore because a little boy had fallen out and died many years before.  

The park was amazing.  A little kids dream.  There were swings and tunnels and a HUGE climbing structure with fireman holes and poles and wobbly bridges.  

I made my way to the swings with a little backpack I had stuffed full of items that seemed completely necessary at the time: my blanket, a half-eaten pop tart, one of the Magic Treehouse books, and a quarter, in case I needed to buy more food. 

I sat there and swung about for around an hour, until I noticed that a lady and her daughter had been lurking and watching me for around half that time.  At first, I thought, they were waiting for the swing, and of course, I thought about how I was the homeless one, so they could deal.

But after a while, their gaze became very awkward for me, and I finally backed away from my swing to let the lady's somewhat chubby daughter take a turn.

But I was not free. The lady followed me.

That's when I went and sat on the grass, very afraid that I was going to be kidnapped by one of those freaky families that I saw on the TV when my parents weren't home.

But instead of kidnapping me, the lady walked up and produced twenty dollars.

The woman ACTUALLY thought I was homeless.  She told me to be careful and gave me the money. 

I was overjoyed!

I went home immediately to show my mother that not only was I obese... I was also rich.

And she could suck it.

To say the least, my mother was very confused.  But at that moment, it did not matter.  I knew what independence felt like. I had handled the harshness of the world. I had survived without my mother's nurturing hand, and I had gotten rich in less than 2 hours.

From then on, no matter what my mother said to me, I was going to be steal.  She could not hurt me.  I was a survivor. 

And I had won. 

The Chaos Cycle of Rejection

When I like a boy, I have to watch myself very carefully, for I am known for lapsing into what I like the call, the chaos cycle of rejection.  This cycle also is more likely to occur when there is a copious amount of sugar or caffeine pumping through my system.

The cycle begins with my obsessing over the state of me and boy I like's relationship, if they do not like me within two days of when I first confirm my attraction for them.  I then begin to brainstorm what I can possibly do about the fact that they are not stalking me in return.

I have come up with four options that basically apply to every relationship.

OPTION 1

Tell him exactly how I feel.  Being honest is always a plus, but there is always a LARGE chance of rejection, and I would most likely run away crying after professing my feelings, for the only thing harder for me than rejection is confession.

OPTION 2

Keep my cool.  Still be his friend.  Alas, this is more of a transitional and temporary step, for at some point, my bottled up feelings will explode, and he will inevitably be drenched in unwanted love.


OPTION 3

Be fucking amazing, and play hard to get until he shits bricks every time I walk in a room. 

OPTION 4

Be super flirty, but also be his friend.  There are sparkles everywhere and wind always blowing in my hair. Wink a lot.


I always start off in a nice mixture of option 2 and 4.  This is pretty easy for a while, but then the chaos kicks in.  I begin to worry that he has figured me out.

How long has he known? Is he going to confront me? WHAT DO I DO?!!?

After this, every conversation becomes an epic battle of keeping my shit together.  Even simple things like saying hello in the hallway become a stressed action because somehow the way I say the word "hello" could give me away.

I avoid all contact, until that fateful day arrives when he needs me to answer a simple homework problem.

I am cornered and before the question is out..

I lose whatever final grasp I had of my sanity,

and panic ensues.

and without my my consent, my mouth opens and thrusts forth option one against my will.
word.vomit.

and I am left alone, crumpled on the floor in a pile of despair and failure.  and most likely don't know what the math homework was either.