Life Lessons - First Grade

“Heads Up Seven Up” is a harmless enough children’s game on the surface, but it would ingrain an indelible scar in my brain from which I have never recovered.  For those unaware, the game is rather simple.  A handful of students are selected and the rest of the class buries their heads, closes their eyes, and sticks up their thumb.  Each of the selected students then picks one person, presses down their thumb, and returns to the front of the room.  The lucky few whose thumbs no longer remain vertical must guess which of their classmates has chosen them.  Looking back, I’m sure teachers must use this game to help them identify the cheaters in their class (re: who’s really good at guessing).  As you now know, I’m not a cheater.  During the course of one of these games, I had worked myself into an uncomfortable position with my head and arms.  As anyone who has ever experienced sweaty balls stuck to inner thighs on a hot, humid day can tell you, sometimes you just have to readjust.  It happens.  Keeping my eyes closed, I raised my head slightly for a small shift (of my head).  Laura Soucie, one of the thumb pressers, apparently saw things differently.  She complained to the teacher that I was opening my eyes to look.  What? I did no such thing!  I was reprimanded by the teacher, and I’m convinced she had it in for me the rest of the year.  My only basis to support this claim is the lone other memory I have from first grade.  It involves the teacher yelling at me for getting out of my desk to pick up a pencil I had dropped that rolled a few feet away.  But I digress.  The lesson here is that girls are not to be trusted.  Ever.  Why am I so screwed up when it comes to females and relationships?  You can thank Laura Soucie for that.