The Shocking Truth Behind The Impact That Sunday School, Play-school, and Kindergarten Had On My Attitude Towards Education.

OR

That’s Fucked Up.

Here we go, kids! My long awaited educational time-line, complete with ages – unassailable proof of the manner in which I was caused, against my will, to detest school and all those associated with it.

3⅜ years old. Sunday school. (All the other moms told mine that it’s just what everyone does, so, like most immigrants who want to fit in, Ma listened to them). As I was only 3⅜ years old, my memory of the events is incomplete at best, so I’ll just go with the story the way I’ve always heard it. About 20 minutes after the start of my first time at Sunday school, Ma answered the phone call that marked what was also to be my last time at Sunday school. She was asked to pick me up, and told not to bring me back again. The reason? The Sunday school-marm had freaked out and locked herself in an office, refusing to come out and insisting that I was ‘the Devil incarnate’. I had apparently taken exception to something she’d said, made ‘horns’ on my head with my fingers, then chased her around the room, roaring like an animal. She finally managed to race up a short flight of stairs and took refuge in the office. Did I mention she was a fully-grown, adult woman and I was 3⅜ years old at the time?
4 years old. Play school. (Pre – Kindergarten). Another phone call, this time from a woman with the unlikely moniker “Miss Muffet,” another request to keep me home. This time out, the claim was that I had been swearing, as well as teaching the other toddlers to swear right along with me. What had I said? An excellent question, and, coincidentally, the very question posed by Ma. Muffet said she didn’t dare repeat it, so Ma naturally assumed I’d gotten hold of one of the ‘BIG ONES’ – shit or fuck or something equally unacceptable for use in polite society. (The truth of the matter is – it was Ralphie, but I never did rat him out. Until now.) It took a solid 5 minutes of cajoling to finally get a seriously embarrassed Muffet to repeat the foul words. Ready? Pee pee bum. That’s it. From a 4 year old. Pee pee bum. I had just undergone my second expulsion from a supposed ‘Learning Institute’ in as many years for saying Pee pee bum. And it wasn’t even me. When Ma told our Doctor about it later that day, she pissed herself laughing. Really. Pissed her pants right there in the office.
5 years old. Kindergarten. Huge fight with idiot ‘teacher’ over school pageant costuming. Ma had made me a truly swell costume with the best fake beard you have ever seen. Despite my repeated and loud explanation that this was, in fact, a beard, the moron insisted it was actually a wig, treated it as such and sent me out on fucking stage with my fucking beard on my fucking head. At least Ma got a laugh out of it.
 

And it just keeps getting weirder, but like Hunter S. said,  "When the going gets weird, the weird turn Pro."