We all did it. We all went to elementary school when we were little, and it’s become apparent to me that regardless of age or geographic location, we all had the exact same experience. This fact aside, what blows my mind even more is how did we all experience the same events and not ONE of us ever asked “what was that?!”.
The Cafeteria
First of all, only an 8 year old could handle the smell of this gigantic, linoleum, no-window catch all of a room and still manage to eat a meal. This was the place that we all learned how to “pick our poison”, especially in the drink section. You get a plethora of milk options which is always my beverage of choice when eating pizza or a hot dog.
Also, what weight conscious 1st grader really opts for the “skim” selection? Everyone went for chocolate. There was also that weird juice option that I would venture to guess was never replaced for my entire elementary career. Now, some genius had the brilliant idea to make the milk situation we were all forced to deal with even more luxurious. He thought “How can I make kids permanently hate milk? I know! Let’s make it taste like paper” and poured it all into small cardboard cartons. Thank you, milk guy.
Lest we ALL forget that 1 year where the carton vanished and we all got weird bags of milk that you had to stick the straw into the middle. Really? You’re going to give a 9 year old a balloon filled with milk and expect we’re not all going to slam them on the ground and stomp on them? Hence that lasting exactly 1 year.
P.E.
Everyone loved this class the most, which in hindsight is beyond my comprehension when I look back and the activities we were forced to participate in. Scarf juggling. That actually happened. Frequently.
Also I feel like I was always being forced to try my hand in joining the “Presidential Fitness Club” which to be fair, Stretch Armstrong wasn’t flexible enough to qualify for. Really, the V-Sit? I would pull a hamstring every year and still miss it by a mile.
And need I mention the to-the-death competition “Jump Rope for Heart”. It starts with helicoptering around to make sure you’re not going to slap another kid in the back of the head with your rope. Then there’s always one kid that gets out on the first jump. This kid instantly becomes the tattle tale, and calls out everyone that even THINKS about messing up a jump for the next 40 minutes. His name is always Evan or Patrick. The girl out first is always Tiffany. Fact. Next people drop down, one by one, until it’s 2 people left. That’s when the coach decides to make this a cirque-de-solil competition and he’s like “CRISS CROSS! NO DOUBLE JUMPING! HIGH KNEES! BEHIND THE BACK!”. It takes a special person to not just say "screw it, we're doing the parachute today". That was everyone's favorite anyways.
I always managed to be outfitted in a wind suit when any competition happened. Which was basically like when people work out with trash bags all over themselves.
Art and Music
More importantly, smelly markers. Oh my gosh the red one and the pink one. They were always the first to go “missing” and the color-coordinated moustache on the thief didn’t exactly require Nancy Drew’s detective skills in order to find the culprit.
The hunter green smelled like pine sol and the black one was formaldehyde. No question in my mind there. I remember every art teacher had an unhealthily level of love for their kiln. Like, you couldn’t even think about touching the outside of it. It’s a 2 ton oven, crazy art lady. I weigh 55 pounds, we’re good. Also can we acknowledge that EVERY year art class started out by teaching ROY G BIV and the color spectrum? As if like Alzheimer’s patients we simply forgot our colors and needed to start over from scratch?
And then next door was music class. Everyone always talks about the recorder, but let’s get real, you couldn’t even touch those bad boys til like 4th grade. Remember what we were playing before then? Sticks.
Yep, we had the ones with the grooves on them that you’d rub back and forth or tap with, and they were blue. What kind of terrible error did someone make in their fine arts college to end up teaching sticks to a bunch of 7 year olds? Also, the triangle apparently required adult instruction.
Side question, why was there a piano in the room? No one, again like the kiln, was allowed to even touch it.
Corrective Orthodontia
Note that I didn’t say “braces” here. And there’s a reason for that. The extremely aggressive apparatuses that decorated the faces of the kids I grew up with reached far beyond the standard definition of braces.
There was that weird cage thing some kids had glued to the roof of their mouth for their tongue to go in (unknown the purpose of that), braces with rubber bands criss-crossing, and head gear to name a few. Also, apparently dentists required people to get their “hours” in, so they would have to keep these torture chambers on their face for at least ½ the day.
How did it escape all of us that the more annoying the student was, the more severe their headgear got? They don’t need rubber bands, their parents just wanted them to shut up. Backfire of the century, they just talked with a lisp, but still, fair effort adults. I never needed braces (I have a gnarky tooth that will disagree with that) and it’s probably because I was never, ever annoying as a child.
