Were YOU the Victim of my Turtle Debacle?

» June 28, 2004 3:15 PM by Nicole

My apologies all over the place. This goes down in history as one of the cruelest things I致e ever done.

1983. Kindergarten at Minot Forest Elementary.

Mrs. Pellegrino (a.k.a. Mean-o Pellegrino) greeted us with a big 組ood morning class� and said the following:

DIRECT QUOTE--鄭t some point today, you should go over to the 層orktable,� put on your headphones and follow the instructions.�

I知 not sure if they do this nowadays, but back in the early eighties children sat around a table with massive earphones plugged into a pre-recorded audio track that gave them directions like, 電raw a big blue circle溶ow in the center of the circle, draw a red box� and all that bull. I supposed they used these sessions to determine who were the smart kids and who were the psychotic kids.

I remember watching the other kids do it and I...well...I didn稚 want to do it. And technically, she did say 鉄HOULD� go over. Not you have to. Not you壇 better. Not a definite do this now. She said 都hould.� I don稚 do everything I 都hould,� so I decided to play instead.

I played while others went over to the worktable in shifts because there were only 9 headphones. I was stealthy. No one noticed that I was not participating in the brainwashing/headphone exercise. I saw that they were drawing turtles. Everyone was drawing their own turtles with different colored shells and faces and feet. Those SUCKERS!

Then Mean-o Pellegrino said:

DIRECT QUOTE--徹K擁f you have completed the project at the worktable, you may have snack, but if not葉hen you will skip snack today and do the project.�

Whuh? Skip snack. No fuckin� way. So葉his is awful-- I snuck over to the table where everyone had put their completed turtles and I find one without a NAME on it. I wrote MY name on it.

I stole someone痴 turtle. I知 a liar and a thief.

At the end of the day we were called up to get out turtles and some poor little kid missed snack because of me.

My graham crackers and milk were bittersweet that day.

I never found out whose turtle it was溶o one ever approached me about it.

If it was you and you池e looking for justifiable vengeance enveloped in persecution and torture, I understand. Just know that a fierce self-loathing sprung up in the pit of my tummy that day. It痴 grown stronger ever since.

So...sorry.