I hate getting in trouble.
When I started school, I was terrified of having my teachers get mad at me or (Gasp!) send me to the principal's office. I'm pretty sure I would have straight up died from the fear of having to face the principal, I was so scared of punishment. Because of this, I was pretty much the best student a teacher could hope for. I never talked when the teacher was speaking, and I sat at my desk looking ahead to the blackboard with my hands folded neatly in my lap.
Breaking the rules never even entered my mind.
In second grade, I was heartbroken when my teacher, whom I really liked, yelled at me for sitting on my desk. I took it personally. Oh, and I almost puked at the reality of actually being yelled at. I was such a naive kid that when a classmate in third grade offered me ABC gum, which stood for Already-Been-Chewed, (although I didn't know that at the time), I quietly whispered, "I'll take some after class", because, you know, we couldn't chew gum in class.
The kid looked at me like I was a nut case.
In fourth grade we had the "Card System", where everyone started with a green card for the day, and if you misbehaved once you would get a yellow card, as a warning. If you acted out again, you would receive a red card, which either got you detention, a visit with the principal, or some other horrible, life-ending result.
One day I was talking with a friend, and didn't hear the teacher calling the class back to order, and I guess she thought I was ignoring her, so she gave me a yellow card. I turned beat red, and had to contain myself from completely breaking down into a puddle of sobs. A yellow card?? I felt destroyed.
Thankfully I learned to loosen up over the next few years. I was still a quiet, well-behaved kid, but I didn't have a freaking heart attack every time a teacher looked at me the wrong way.
By my senior year in high school, I was pretty much tired of school. Well, I was tired of high school, that is. Tired of the cliques, the drama, the immaturity of it all. I began taking college classes and only had to show up to high school for the last period every day. One day I got to school and saw that the last period was cancelled because the school was having a mandatory pep assembly.
When I started high school I was all about pep assemblies - I would deck myself out, head to foot, in blue and white, our school colors. I would put ribbons in my hair and paint my nails and face. I would write "GO MAVERICKS" on my jeans and cheer as loud as I could at the assemblies. I was a glittery mess of school spirit. After three years of that though, I was pretty worn out and just didn't have it in me anymore.
I was dreading going to the assembly when my friend Sara approached me and suggested we just skip out.
Skip out? As in, ditch school? At first I was horrified by the idea. Only bad kids skipped school. But then I got to thinking. At that time I was in the, I'm 18 years old, I'm an adult, I can do whatever I want, stage of my life, (the one that parents just love, I'm sure). So I decided, what the heck. And we left.
And it was THRILLING! As we sped out of the school parking lot, hoping the security guard didn't see us, and that no one would miss us, I couldn't help but wonder why I had never taken any chances before? Why had I lived my entire school career being so straight-laced, so by-the-book?
That day changed me. From then on out I took a much more relaxed view toward school. The two classes I still attended at high school were Yearbook and Drama. When I felt that I had done enough work on the yearbook, I would just quietly slip out, leaving school 20 or 30 minutes early. And if I was in Drama, but I knew that I wasn't going to be asked to rehearse any scenes, I would escape through the back door of the theater which led, conveniently, right into the parking lot and to my car.
By the time I got to college I would sometimes opt for taking a nap rather than going to class. Don't worry, mom and dad, I didn't do that too often. And I only napped through unimportant classes like P.E., and that lame class on sociology that was taught by a drug addict who had mother issues.
That dude is another story for another day.
I still managed to graduate college a year early with honors, so I don't think I did any damage to my educational career by taking a few classes off here and there. It's funny for me to look back at the way I was when I started school, where if a teacher would raise their voice to me, I would practically pee myself. By the time I finished school I wasn't looking to be any teacher's pet, I just wanted that shiny degree that promised me a job that paid lots of money.
So that's my story. And now I'm totally freaking out that my parents are going to yell at me for skipping classes. I hate getting in trouble.
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