I was a second grader in Mrs. Meyer’s class when I learned a very important lesson in telling it like it is. I was very shy when I was young, and some things just seemed to be very embarrassing to me. Getting up in front of the classroom was one embarrassing thing for example, and another thing was saying certain words in public. I am not talking about cuss words for I had already been well trained of the hazards of saying cuss words. What I’m talking about is embarrassing words, and the worst of all the embarrassing words in the world to me at that time was “diarrhea”.
My Mom had kept me home from school for a couple days because I had come down with a bad case of, you know, that terrible word. But I had recovered and she was now going to send me back to school. I will always remember the excuse notes that Mom always sent us back to school with. She had to have written hundreds of them during our years of school, and they always said the same thing. Mine would always say, “Please excuse Jackie from school for he was sick and unable to attend”. I would use the same worded note all the way through my high school years.
But on this day my mom dropped me off at school with note in hand and I walked straight to my class. Mrs. Meyers was seated at her desk, so I walked over to her, handed her my note, and went to sit down at my desk. I no sooner sat down that Mrs. Meyers asked me to come back up to her desk. I walked up there only to hear the most horrifying question of my young life. She asked me, “Jackie, the note doesn’t say what was wrong with you, what was it that you were sick with?” I started feeling sick at the thought of telling her that I had diarrhea. I stood there looking back at her and she asked me again. I had to say something, so I finally answered her with the first thing that came into my mind, I said, “I had the Mumps”.
Mrs. Meyers seemed to be very concerned with my answer and she asked me to come around to her side of the desk. When I got around there to her she started feeling around on my neck. She turned my head from side to side looking me over very closely and then she informed me that in her opinion it looked like my neck was still a bit swollen. She then told me to come with her and we started down the hall to the Principals office.
She had me take a seat when we got there and then she opened a file cabinet and took out what I figured to be my folder. When she began dialing the telephone I started getting very nervous because I was afraid that she was calling a doctor about me. The reality of it all hit me when I heard her speak my mother’s name and then begin to tell my mom of her diagnosis of my neck. She then started staring at me while listening to my mother and I knew that this was not going to turn out good. She hung up the phone and walked up to me seated in the chair, and right in front of at least ten people in the room she said, “Your mother said you had diarrhea”. I felt like I was going to cry it embarrassed me so bad, but I held it back. I was then escorted back to the room and the day went on as normal. My Mom was still laughing when she picked me up from school that afternoon, and we still laugh about it to this day.
I will always remember that day in the second grade. It was a lesson well taught and hard learned. As I grew older and less shy I learned that diarrhea isn’t as hard to say as it seemed to be back then. And now even though I do admit that I do fall short from time to time, when asked a serious question, I try to tell it like it is.
Jack, I remember feeling the same way. Kids are embarrassed about things like that. And somehow we forget that when we have kids. Brave of you to remind us.
Reviewed by Amber Lynn
12/30/2002
Oh, the wonderful confliction of shyness, I remember it well. What a story to take me back.
Reviewed by Betty Rickard
10/27/2002
Jack,
I just read your write about the bowling alley now this...Seems your always getting in trouble LOL LOL LOL...I love this write also..Excellent!
good write, jack, although i've never had mumps. chickenpox and measles (twice, meaning the measles), yes, but not the mumps. hear they are painful. hope i never get the mumps!! (just call me "mumpy"; i can hear the catcalls now!!) love, your "mumpless" friend, karen lynn. (((HUGS))) :)
Jack,
A most important lesson, indeed. I believe it is this fear that is one of the beginnings of people being unable to really connect when it counts as deep intimate relationships meet the challenges that either make them stronger or pull them apart.
Good for you for giving it voice.
TRUE STORY. Bella survived an abusive powerbroker father with organized crime ties, a drug-addicted mother and a physically/sexually abusive brother. Shocking & inspirational. When she couldn't cry, she tattooed a crying angel to cry for her.
