Other People's Stories

I collect stories.  As a nonfiction major (read: concentration, because it is technically correct), most of the stories are my own, but occasionally I take a break from self-absorption and add other people into the pile.  Other people’s stories are tricky.  I write about other people rarely because I don’t want to misrepresent them.  I don’t want to force them into a tutu and make them perform a ballet dance they didn’t sign up for.  I don’t want to act like I know what I’m talking about when I only know what they’ve told me – what they’ve chosen to tell me.  I avoid other people’s stories whenever I can.  There is one type of Other People’s Stories that I really love, though.  I love those stories that you can only speculate about.  You see something, out in public, at the store, a scrap of paper left behind – something that you just know is the start to a story that is floating out in space.  And you know that it is a story that needs to be told, a constellation that needs lines to be drawn in it.  It is hard to tell Other People’s Stories, yes – but it is much, much easier when you don’t know anything about the person.  When you will probably never meet them, and all you have of them is this small piece of something, a story unwritten.  Those are the Other People’s Stories that I love.

I have decided to tell some of the stories that I have collected.  It is time that I took them out of the jar on my shelf and threw them up into the sky to be written among others.  I’m not sure just how I am going to tell these stories; the methods may vary.  But here is my first Other People’s Story.  If you are offended by language, I suggest you stop reading here, although really I don’t, because you’ve got to open yourself up to the world around you, regardless of how that part of the world may be worded.  I assure you in this case that the language is necessary—and that it is not my own words that I am repeating.

“The Fuck-up”

I don’t remember where I was.  I think it was Milledgeville, but it doesn’t matter.  I could have been anywhere.  This could have been any gas station, because it could have been anybody’s car.  I was getting gas, likely only filling up to whatever ten dollars would get me, and very possibly contemplating if I wanted to actually put in nine dollars and use the remaining money on an ice cream bar.  I scoped out the other pumps, a precaution I have developed as a paranoid young woman who views everybody as a potential rapist/serial killer, and I saw the car.

It was an old car, that much I do remember.  The kind of car that your parents give you that you really don’t want, but it’s better than no car, so you take it and try to play it off like it’s vintage.  But really it’s right there on the line between vintage and just an old car that hasn’t gained vintage coolness yet.  Instead of looking like a rockstar car connoisseur, you just look poor.  Of course this is all speculation.  Maybe the kid wasn’t poor and maybe it was really a vintage car.  What do I know about cars?  What really caught my attention wasn’t the questionable vintage-ness-bordering-on-hand-me-down-ness of the car.  It was that carved into the car, covering the entire passenger side in a way that would be impossible to conceal, was the word “Fuck-up.”  I don’t remember if it was hyphenated or even if it should be.  I imagine that whoever carved it was not the kind of grammarian or linguist who would pause to look up the proper punctuation of the word or words.  But there it was, bold, harsh, screaming.  Fuck-up.

There is no getting away from a mark like that.  That guy had to drive his car around town, pick up movies at Blockbuster, fill up with gas, drive himself to class, to friends’ houses, to parties, home to his parents – with the word “Fuck-up” glaring at him.  Really, the “Fuck-up” was glaring at other people on the road, but the message was clear.  Everybody saw that carving.  Everybody he passed, whether he cut them off or graciously yielded the right-of-way – it was there.  And for that reason, it may as well have seared through the door, burning the letters into the car’s interior. 

We are all fuck-ups at some point.  Except maybe for my brother, who has probably never done anything worse than steal a fork from a small roadside diner, everybody has those low moments we’d rather pretend didn’t happen altogether.  In high school I left the kid I babysat at home because my sister was there and I was only going to be gone a minute.  I don’t know what I was thinking.  It was by far one of the worst things I have ever done, and it was almost like the me who is logical and thoughtful and conscientious floated out of my body and some other me came in – one who was stupid and careless and selfish and who had serious problems with priorities (I would just like to point out that there is more to that story, but that it is not the focus here).  We all have those mental snapshots that belong in the mental bonfire, but no matter how hard they are to forget, those moments are not physically etched into our possessions.  When I open my laptop, you can see scratches.  They’re from the many times the computer was dropped and from my cat sleeping on it, his claws that we never clip scratching into the aluminum cover.  The marks don’t spell out my weaknesses, short of maybe being a poor computer owner.

But imagine if they did.  What if my computer spelled out “Irresponsible”?  Or “Unemployed”?  I could go further and say “Only one in class to not get a job,” but I doubt people would really take the time to read that.  What if my car had “helpless” or “worthless” or some other “-less” carved  into the side door, out there for everyone to see my lowest moments?  I (and I imagine most of the rest of us) walk through life constantly afraid of judgment.  I want people to like me, to think I’m funny and interesting and smart.  I want people to overlook the job situation and believe me when I say that it’s not my fault, I am trying everything I can.  I want people to want to be my friend and to care about me and to please, please, please not see what I see on my worst days.  For this guy, this Fuck-up, everybody could see all the time that he was worthless and hopeless and probably irresponsible or lazy or a liar or a cheater or a heathen.  It will not matter what he does to redeem himself; short of buying a new car, there is no way out of a branding like that.

I don’t know what he did to deserve the carving.  Maybe he cheated on his girlfriend, maybe he stole his best friend’s fiancé.  Maybe he was responsible for keeping up with something and lost it: a ring or a document or a picture of the enemy for a foreign network of spies.  Probably not that last one.  His side of the story is unfortunately silent.  But I feel like even if he did get a chance to voice his side, we wouldn’t be able to hear anything over the sound of the word “Fuck-up,” shouted like a battle cry from the side of his car.  

On stupid questions and brilliant arguments

It is probably no surprise that I was that kid in class who asked questions the teacher couldn’t always answer.  I argued my answers, challenged the book, and debated what I believed to be the correct answer.  Most of the time I was probably just being arrogant and annoying.  But sometimes I was right.

I remember one time in particular; I was in the third grade.  We were learning cardinal directions, and the teacher said that in front of you is North, behind you is South, to your left is West, and to your right is East.  I was confused.  The teacher was facing us.  Could she have a different North than we did?  So I asked:

“But if two people are facing each other, which one is really looking North?”

She repeated: “In front of you is North, behind you is South, to your left is West, and to your right is East.”

“But… Then when if you’re facing one way and then you turn?”

“In front of you is North, behind you is South, to your left is West, and to your right is East.” 

I blame her for why I can never tell my left from my right.  I probably shouldn’t; I know that’s my fault.  But I’m not always clear-minded and rational.

Case in point: Once in fourth grade, I asked probably the dumbest question I have ever asked.  It had nothing to do with what we were studying, but it needed to be answered right freaking then, so I raised my hand.  The conversation went like this:

“Are there any questions”

My hand went up.

“Yes, Kimberly?”

“Do cats really have nine lives?”

“About the Civil War.”

“Oh.  Then no.”

The beautiful poetic justice for that came a few days ago, when I was subbing in a Social Studies class, and I had to field almost that exact same question.  There you go, Mrs. Blasingame.  I guess we’re even.

This one is dangerously close to losing about four of his lives.

Today, I had to answer questions that I couldn't answer.  It wasn't that I didn’t know the answer, it was that the children wanted to challenge the book.  The vocabulary word was ‘peculiar.’  The question was, “Which of the following could be considered peculiar?” 

                a) a rich person begging on the street

                b) a pet lobster

                c) a person who doesn’t eat meat

                d) a mouse chasing a cat

This is one of those questions that can have more than one answer, and I’m willing to bet that some students said all of the above were peculiar.  The answers, as given by the book, are A, B, and D.

Suddenly, the students started talking out.

“What?  Not eating meat is peculiar.  Why wouldn’t you eat meat?”

“I don’t eat meat!  I am not peculiar!”

“Having a pet lobster isn’t weird!  My uncle has a pet lobster!”

“Then you uncle is weird.”

Oh, so I guess you're saying Homer is weird too ---yeah, okay.  He's pretty weird.

I listened to their claims, but I told them that any arguments would have to be taken up with their teacher tomorrow.  I can’t make the call, but if it were up to me they all had valid points.  How can you make an opinion question have a right or wrong answer?  What are we teaching students?  The question is designed to measure the student’s understanding of the vocabulary word.  If the student can justify how the word applies to the answer they selected, doesn’t that prove that they understand the word?

Then there was this one:

Which of the following is a dwelling?

a)      A garage

b)      A cabin

c)       A cottage

d)      A church

The answers are B and D.  Sorry if your family lives in a garage room of someone’s house.  I guess that’s not considered a dwelling.

Then a student said, “What?!  A church is too a dwelling!  It’s a dwelling for God!”

Oh boy.  Now we’ve made a what-the-heck omelet, and we are walking on the eggshells. 

I have always disliked multiple choice tests.  As a student, I was terrible at them, because I could almost always talk myself into picking each option.  “A works… but B works too.  C could work if you read it like this… “  Then I would tiptoe up to the teacher’s desk.  “All of these could be the answer!”

“Don’t think about it too hard.  Just read the question and pick the answer.”

Oh.  Is that what I was supposed to do?

Thanks to Shipp for this picture!  Oh hey - here's his tumblr! 

I hated being told not to think too hard.  For one, I have always been a chronic overthinker.  It’s not something I can turn off, because I don’t know what an appropriate stopping place for my train of thought is.  If I have always thought this way, I can’t exactly say to myself, “Annnd here.  Here is where you can stop thinking.  Disembark from the train and select B because, when one stops their train of thought at this particular destination, it becomes clear that B is the answer.”  It is impossible.  In fact, thinking about overthinking is probably overthinking.

The other issue I had/have with being told not to think about it too much is that I was at school.  To learn.  To think.  What was I supposed to do, if not think?  What are we teaching students by saying “Don’t think too hard.  Just write down that  B is the answer.  If you don’t have B as your answer then it is wrong”?  What does that say to the brilliant argument posed by the girl with the uncle’s pet lobster?  What does it tell the boy who sees a church as a dwelling for God?  Are these students going to become lifelong learners, lifelong seekers of truth, if they are told this early in their lives that they are wrong to examine something from different angles?

No.  They are not going to turn into seekers of truth.  Getting a good grade matters more than getting to win an argument against a book or a teacher.  The answer is B.  If you don’t have B, you are wrong.  If you have something other than B, you are wrong. 

North is always in front of you.