(I’m allergic to most plant materials; this includes fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds, berries, pollen, etc. I explain this fairly often and some people have trouble grasping the concept that I can still eat stuff.)
Classmate: “So you can’t have beef or chicken?”
Me: “I just said I couldn’t eat plants; are beef and chicken plants?”
Classmate:*whispers to a friend* “Are they?”
(The teacher overhears and comes over.)
Teacher: “Beef and chicken are animals, not plants. She can have them.”
Me: “How did you not know that? We’re in seventh grade.”
This story is part of our Houseplant roundup! This is the last story in the roundup, but we have plenty of others you might enjoy!
(Usually, at the beginning of a school year, there are some activities so your peers can get to know you in some sort of way. They are mainly activities that involve telling two truths about yourself and one false while the class has to guess the false.)
Teacher: “Okay, [My Name], tell us about you.”
Me: “A.) I once found a grenade in my yard. B.) I was on a subway train in Barcelona where some thieves with a bunch of stolen purses pulled out a knife on several pursuing police officers which triggered a fight on the train. And C.) I hate brownies…”
Classmate: “Everybody loves brownies… C is false.”
(During my senior year of high school, I volunteer to stay after school to help out the theater department by painting sets for their next production. I’m a very quiet, unassuming girl who is well known for sticking to myself and not talking much, and though I have no problems with the theater students, I only really have one friend in the group who knows me.)
Theater Student #1: “Okay, I’m tired of listening to [local radio station notorious for playing the same handful of pop songs every hour or so]. Why don’t we put on someone’s iPod or something?”
Theater Student #2: “Does anyone have anything with them?”
Friend: “[My Name] has a book of CDs in her backpack. Our art teacher lets us listen to them during class because we got sick of the radio, too.”
Theater Student #1: “Yeah, but what does [My Name] really listen to? She looks like a Justin Bieber, Miley Cyrus kind of girl.”
(All of a sudden and with the best timing ever, my phone starts ringing. My ringtone is the song “Night Surgeon” from the hyper-violent musical film, “Repo! The Genetic Opera,” which I and many of the theater students are huge fans of, and no one realizes it’s coming from my phone until I answer it.)
Theater Student #1: “On second thought, I want to see these CDs now!”
This story is part of our Musical Theater Roundup!
(I ride on my university’s equestrian team, and we carpool to the barn for lessons. This conversation takes place between me and a girl from California.)
Girl: “So, [My Name], you’re from Alaska, right? Do you have penguins there?”
Me: “Uh… yeah, actually. Sometimes I run them over with my dog sled team.”
Girl:*gasps* “Really?”
Me: “Yeah, and our high school is a giant igloo, and the security guards are trained polar bears!”
Girl: “Wow!”
(I can no longer keep a straight face, and crack up)
Me: “Oh, my God! No, not really! It gets colder here than back home!”
