It’s the first day of World Literature class, and my teacher has started some activities where we can get to know each other better. One of the questions involves asking another person where they want to eat on their birthday.

Student #1: “And [Student #2] said that he wants to eat at the White House.”

Teacher: “Okay! That seems a little ambitious, but…”

Student #2: “I said The Lighthouse, the place over on [Street]!”

Thanks to some assistance and other factors, I end up going to a high school that usually costs a lot of money. It’s a big deal in my family that I get to go! While the vast majority of the costs are covered, I still don’t want to be a burden on my family, so I get a part-time job on the weekends working the checkout at a grocery store.

The grocery store, like my school and most things in the area, is quite high-end and so attracts a certain “type” of customer.

I am scanning items when I hear my name called. I look up, and the customer I am serving is with one of my schoolmates.

Schoolmate: “Oh, hey, [My Name]! I didn’t know you worked here!”

Me: “Yes, just at the weekends to help out the family.”

Schoolmate’s Mother: “[Schoolmate], how do you know this…” *gives me a quick look up-and-down, her disapproval palpable* “…person?“

Schoolmate: “Mom, this is [My Name]. I know her from school.”

Schoolmate’s Mother: “Do you work there, too? The cafeteria?”

Schoolmate: *Laughs* “No, Mom! Silly! Remember I told you that I got extra help in science the other day? That was [My Name]!”

Schoolmate’s Mother: “Oh, so you’re a teacher’s assistant?”

Me: “No, ma’am, I am a student, same as [Schoolmate]. I helped her with a science project the other day.”

Schoolmate’s Mother: *Looking like she’s having a stroke* “But… but why are you working?“

I want to say, “Because I’m poor,” but she’s still a customer, so I pull out some BS to get this conversation over and done with.

Me: “Oh, I just think it will make me a more open-minded person and allow me to appreciate the value of hard work.”

Schoolmate’s Mother: “Nonsense! I’ve never worked a day in my life, and look how I turned out.”

Schoolmate: “Mom… that’s not the flex that you think it is.”

Later that year, this crazy lady actually complains at an open parents’ night that “people like me” shouldn’t be allowed in the school and certainly shouldn’t be mingling with the “real students.”

A few months later, she ends up in my checkout lane again! I don’t think she notices me at first as she is on her phone, but she realizes something is up when I’m not touching any of her items.

Schoolmate’s Mother: “Well?”

Me: “Oh, hi there, Mrs. [Schoolmate’s Mother]. Sorry, I would love to check you out, but I can’t. I’m not real, y’see. You said I wasn’t a real person, so there’s nothing I can do.”

The penny has dropped; she remembers.

Schoolmate’s Mother: “That’s not what I meant, and you know it! Check me out or I will call over your manager.”

Me: “Oh, well, y’see, we could do that, but I’m seventeen and I am amazing at my job here, just like I am amazing at school — y’know, that same school where I don’t belong — and I think I am safe at both. Now, please feel free to use another checkout where real people exist, but since I am not real and therefore unable to serve you, you’ll just be talking to yourself. Bye!”

She stormed off, and she must have complained to my manager; said manager came over near the end of my shift to give me a high-five after I explained my side of the story.

Way back in the late 1970s, I was in junior high school, and I started hanging out at the career center, which was open during lunchtime and had a great counselor. It also had a brand-new device called a computer, where you called a phone number and placed the handset onto a modem which was plugged into the computer, and then you typed on a keyboard and waited for the response on the printer. (Yep, a dot matrix printer — there was no monitor.) I was familiar with them due to my dad’s work, so I was interested to try this one out.

In order to use it, you had to pass a written test. The test was short and easy but impossible to pass without being trained. (One of the questions was “What is the password?”) You got trained by fellow students, and I noticed that the group that hung out around the computer always helped out anyone who asked.

Well, almost anyone. You see, all the users were boys, and I was not. When I asked, they were too busy — but they jumped to train the next boy who came along. I tried several times, but nothing worked. And it was impossible to pass that test without their help. I vented about this to the career counselor. I’m not sure why the help had to come from students, but it did; she didn’t have the information to help me.

Soon after that, before I could come up with the next step to try, the vice principal showed up.

Vice Principal: “Okay, I’m shutting the computer down.”

The boys reacted with shock and complaints.

Vice Principal: “As soon as [My Name] passes the test, I’ll let you back on it.”

What do you know, I passed that test the very next day. And if you were a computer user back in those days, you’ll understand when I tell you it was the start of a great Adventure.

Related:
Can’t Hear You Over The Sound Of Your Ovaries, Part 26
Can’t Hear You Over The Sound Of Your Ovaries, Part 25
Can’t Hear You Over The Sound Of Your Ovaries, Part 24
Can’t Hear You Over The Sound Of Your Ovaries, Part 23
Can’t Hear You Over The Sound Of Your Ovaries, Part 22

At my primary school, the year fives and sixes got to go on a trip to this outdoorsy activity centre. We stayed for a week, sleeping inside where the bunk beds were since the trip was in late autumn.

As well as all the outdoorsy “fun” activities we got to do, every afternoon, we had an hour or so in a cabin-like classroom, and we could spend any money we had taken with us at the tuck shop. It was mostly just chocolate and sweets and stuff, but on Thursday — the last day since we went home on Friday — there were little souvenirs like a tiny teddy bear and a pen in the shape of an arrow.

We also had group chores. I don’t remember what all of the chores were, but in year six, my chore was to tidy the dinner hall after breakfast with four of my classmates.

Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday morning, this was fine. We wiped the tables and vacuumed the floors and such.

Thursday morning, we did some of that. As I was getting the vacuum cleaner with the smiley face out of the cupboard, one of the classmates I shared this chore with approached me.

Classmate: “The teacher said we don’t have to vacuum today.”

Me: “We don’t?”

Classmate: “Nope. We can go now.”

I looked to see what the other three were doing, and they were waiting by the door, ready to leave.

Me: “Okay.”

And my poor, naive, ten-year-old self put the smiley vacuum back and left with the others.

As some of you may have already guessed, no teacher had said any such thing.

When we went to that hour in the cabin classroom that evening, the teacher started with an announcement. It went on for a while, but the gist of what she said was this:

Teacher: “[My Group] left the dinner hall in a right state. They should be ashamed of themselves. They’re all really selfish, expecting our kind hosts to clean up after them when everyone else has been doing their chores. As punishment, they will not be allowed to go to the tuck shop tonight.”

I was devastated. I thought of myself as a good student and hated getting in any kind of trouble. And, as far as I was aware at the time, I was in trouble when I hadn’t done anything wrong.

I’d also been saving my £5 all week (even though some of the other kids were able to spend that much on sweets each day) so I could get each of my sisters a teddy (and spend the change on sweets). And now, I was banned from the last day of the tuck shop. I was bawling.

One of the teaching assistants took me out of the classroom, probably because my crying would not help the other students focus on whatever they were supposed to be doing.

She calmed me down enough that I could explain why I thought I hadn’t done anything wrong. She explained that I had been lied to and that I should have finished doing the chore unless a teacher told me personally not to. Most importantly, to ten-year-old me at least, she said that if I gave her my £5 note, then she would go to the tuck shop for me to get my sisters their teddies.

I was still upset, but I accepted her offer and returned to the lesson. Later, out of view of the other students, she gave me two tiny teddies and my change.

I’m so glad she was so nice and understanding, even though I hadn’t done what I was supposed to.

I am cripplingly shy in middle school due to an incident in my first few weeks at middle school. I’m fine in classes, and I have a few friends, but I’m generally pretty quiet.

In eighth grade, however, I get my period, and I make a discovery that on the day preceding my period, the first day, and the second day, I become extremely cranky and stop giving a flip about what people think of me. (What a shock — I become hormonal during periods.) 

I also have an unusually heavy period; it’s to the point where I’ll soak through maxi overnight pads in a few hours. I start becoming even quieter and avoid speaking to people to avoid snapping during these days.

In middle school, for some reason, many people think it’s prime time for romance in the halls. One particular couple tends to block the girls’ bathroom entrance in one of the halls by holding each other and looking lovingly into each other’s eyes. What a romantic location! Just the place you want to romance your middle school significant other, right?!

They give the stink-eye to anyone who tries to politely ask them to move so they can go in, offended at being interrupted in their romantic actions. They get snapped at a few times, but they kind of just brush it off and keep doing it.

I’m generally non-confrontational, so I avoid that particular bathroom…

Until one day in February.

My period is on its second day when it’s the heaviest. I’m able to get away to put a pad on, but it’s already pretty much full by the end of class. “No problem,” I think. “Class is almost over, so I can hold out for just a little longer.”

Well, the teacher, oblivious to my issue, proceeds to keep us a few minutes after class. The longer it takes, the more worried I get; I’m starting to awkwardly shift to see if I can see blood on the seat, and I can’t really tell if it’s started leaking onto my pants without reaching down and physically feeling, which would look really awkward.

The second we’re allowed to go, I sprint down the hall. The nearest bathroom is the one that tends to be blocked by the couple, but at the moment, I’m just fully focused on changing the pad, so I don’t register that until I’m already at the door.

The couple is there making goo-goo eyes at each other. I stop, some modicum of shyness still there.

Me: “Excuse me—”

Girl: *Snapping* “Can’t you see we’re busy?”

Nope. I don’t have time for this.

I reach into my bag, grab a packaged pad, and wave it in her and her boyfriend’s faces. I end up being quite a bit louder than I intend to in hormonal anger-panic.

Me: “I’M ABOUT TO BLEED THROUGH MY PANTS AND YOU ARE BLOCKING THE BATHROOM. MOVE.”

The hallway hushes.

They move, and I hurry in. Thankfully, I haven’t leaked, but I was right in that it was really close.

My next class is in the same hallway, so after using the bathroom, I hurry to my locker, grab my next class’s materials, and head to class.

One of my classmates turns around when I sit down. “Oh, great,” I think. “Now I’m gonna get s*** for screaming about my period in the middle of the hall.” I’m already feeling extremely embarrassed.

Classmate: *Shocked* “I didn’t even know you could be that loud!”

For at least a good portion of that day, many of my fellow classmates expressed shock that I was able to yell so loudly that apparently the adjacent halls ALSO heard me shouting.

Nobody joked about the fact that I’d shouted about bleeding onto my pants — or at least, they didn’t do it to my face, which I was eternally grateful for and fine with.

For at least a month after, that couple stopped blocking the bathroom entrance. (They did eventually return to that as their de facto spot until a teacher started scolding them for PDA at school and they started getting significantly sneakier.)