up her nose

XIV.
When I was entering fourth grade, the GATE teacher was a horribly bitter little woman named Quinda Strube. She had a history of making little children cry -- I'm not kidding! -- and I was very shy at the time. So that's how I spent one year in a "regular" classroom with Ms. Carner instead. Ms. Carner was tall and lanky and audaciously red-headed and freckled. She once challenged a kid named Hollister to a yelling contest out on the playground.

Because most (read: all) of the classwork was below my testing levels, I spent my time divided between going to the sixth grade classroom for reading and math, and acting as teacher's aide to the rest of the class.

On this particular day, I was sitting at the teacher's utility table and sorting small objects that were designed for simple math lessons. Among these items were a collection of small enamel beads. They'd been in the unheated storage closet, so they were still cool to the touch, and smooth and shiny. I was rolling them between my fingers as I sorted them, and this is when I had the thought that I could roll them over my face as well.

The rest of the class was working on their assignments. I, exempted because of my superior intellect, sat and rolled a cool enamel bead over my face and to the tender skin just under my nose. And that's when I made the mistake of breathing in, and the bead went shoop and flew up into my nose.

I sniffed lightly. The bead did not budge. Thankfully I had the insight that sending a finger up after the button would merely wedge it further up the nasal cavity. I didn't know what else to do, though, so I sidled up to the teacher and explained my dilemma:

I have a bead stuck up my nose.

Bless the hearts of elementary school teachers everywhere; she didn't stop to judge. She merely sent me to the nurse's office. The nurse looked far more amused at the situation. See, the nurse's office was right next to the principal's office, and I was a big favorite of the principal for raising the school's test averages and skipping a grade and whatnot, and I can just imagine the nurse thinking, So this is that super-smart kid, sticking stuff up her nose. Right.

She gave me a tissue, I blew my nose, exeunt the bead.

The real embarrassing moment came later. That night, at the dinner table, I tried to casually tell the story of having a bead up my nose. My mother said, When was this? Was this when you were in kindergarten? and I had to admit that, well, no, it had actually happened about six hours earlier.

Thursday 07 February, 01:47 PM