#2

The second story that has been nominated for "Most Embarrassing Moment in Becca's Life" happened when I was 9 years old.

It was the beginning of the school year; I was in the 4th grade.  I had just recently become an aunt for the first time, I had most of my close friends in my class, and I liked my teacher.  Honestly, it looked like I was headed for a great year.  Oh how wrong I was.

Now, you are thinking to yourself, "What happened?! Did her dog die? Did she accidentally call her teacher 'Mom?'  Did she fall in front of the whole school?"  The answer to those questions are yes, but not that year.

What happened to me, is honestly much worse than that, and it happened, like most embarrassing middle school stories do; on the playground.

Like most middle schools, mine consisted of children in grades 3 through 6.  The school had 2 wings, you had the 3rd and 4th grades down one hallway, and the 5th and 6th grades down the other.  At either end of the school, there were 2 separate playgrounds, one of which has haunted my dreams for 18 years.

It was a fairly normal playground, a couple of swing sets, some monkey bars, and a slide.  Seeing as how there weren't that many options for entertainment, we used to play games outside as well.  There were the usual schoolyard games, Red Rover, tag, kickball, etc.  My favorite game, however, became my undoing. 

Children's imaginations sometimes get the best of them.  My friends and I were constantly trying to think of new ways to have fun on the playground.  For some reason, all our "fun" ideas involved the cornerstone of it: the slide.  Now, this wasn't your typical slide.  She was practically perfect.  It was a million feet tall, realistically it was probably around 6 or 7 feet, but I was 9, and had no real concept of height.  It was a beautiful stainless steel and barely even burned you when it was hot out.  The exposed bolts were so few that you rarely cut yourself.  This was the Beauty Queen of slides.  I named her Bertha.

The day Bertha betrayed me, was a normal day in the life of a 4th grader.  I got up and got dressed, made it to school, said something stupid to my teacher, and then played outside.  Typical.

When recess began, we all swarmed around the slide to start our game.  The point of the game was to see how many people we could actually fit on the slide at one time.  We would send down one person at a time, and they would have to stop themselves from actually exiting the slide.  The strongest person always went first, of course, because he/she would have to hold up the rest of us.  There was a special technique to this game.  You had to slide down sideways, with your legs hanging over the side of the slide, and you would have to have a firm grip but not too firm that it stopped you from actually moving.  This may sound confusing, so I have included an artist's rendering of the scenario below.

I am the artist.

 

I was a very gender neutral child.  I don't like the terms "girly" or "tomboy" because I think that limits children, but I definitely had my own sense of, what I considered, style.  I dressed how I dressed and acted how I acted.  I didn't necessarily like wearing dresses, but I didn't always hate it and occasionally wouldn't fight Liz when she suggested I wear one. This happened to be one of the days that I didn't fight her.  I wore a cute black and white checkered sleeveless jumper which I wore over a short sleeved turtleneck that had two small teddy bears holding hands with a heart in between them.  It was still fairly cold out, so I wore black tights that day, too.

 

Anyway, we had all begun waiting for our turn to climb Bertha's perfectly spaced stairs.  I was 5th in line.

 

The adrenaline was pumping through me.  Only 4 more people to go.  This was my favorite place to be.  Yes, now 3 more people.  I couldn't wait, I was getting so excited.  Now, only 2 more.  I had been practicing my technique for days, I was going to rock this.  Oh my god, one more person.  You can do this.  Yes! MY TURN!  As I climbed up the steps to the summit, my breath caught in my throat, and my hands gripped the railings tightly.  I was nervous.  What if I fell?  No, you can't worry about that now, let's do this.

 

I wish, so much, that I had simply fallen.

 

I sat down, turned my legs to the right as to let them dangle over the side of Bertha and let myself fly.  But I swung my legs too hard and ended up facing the top of the slide as I barrel rolled downward, my legs spread-eagle, making eye contact with the boy who was next in line at the top of the slide.  I flipped backward with such force that I knocked into the person below me so hard that it launched everyone off of the slide and onto the wet ground.

 

Again, here is an artist's rendering.

 

 

We were just a huddled mass of limbs on the ground.  I was on the top of the pile.  I fumbled my way into standing up, grumbling, covered in mulch and mud.  Embarrassed, and on the verge of tears, I ran as fast as my chubby legs could carry me, to the bathroom to clean up.  I locked myself in the stall for the rest of recess, I couldn't face my classmates.  Especially the boy who just saw more of me than he probably had planned to that morning.

 

I wanted to die that day.  You think you're safe, you think that bad things won't happen to you in your favorite place.  You are so happy, and carefree, how could anything go wrong?  You are just going down a slide, what's the worst that could happen?

I didn't go out for recess for about 2 weeks after that, I stayed inside and read.  I figured that reading couldn't hurt you.  They are just words.  It was then that I discovered Charlotte's Web and realized that everything hurts and life is stupid.

 

Becca's Adulthood Survival Tip #6:  Be careful.  It's the most beautiful ones that hurt you the most.