Punkly Speaking
He’s trying to wake up against the noise in the room his refrigerator's warmth breathing against the wall. Eyelids creep. Sounds of breath drown the refrigerator, the room is identified as distinctly pink. There is no exit, unless he starts dancing…
So he gets up and starts dancing, triggering an old knee injury...
His NTC watch (required accessory) is blinking that a message has arrived. His watch reads: KI:KI "You will be visited by a special messenger tomorrow to deploy your new mission for the next edition of the New Town Crier"
Mine? This:
Umm, what the hell is Pinkly Speaking really about? The more thought I give it, the more I realize how this column does more for our hallowed motto “confess” than most of us do in our daily lives. To me, the heart of this column is dialogue to those situations that bring a bit of rose to the cheeks… the moments that make us blush (ah, new love), and the moments that force the blood to rush (isn’t that the result of one’s ankles over one’s head?).
The moments that make the blush come to my cheeks, however, are the moments of embarrassment that peek in from the past every once in a while. Like that Christmas assembly in Grade Two:
I’m not much for being told what to do, so think of me at age seven being told not to leave the gymnasium after entering it. What we kids didn’t know was that Santa was waiting at the door with a bag of oranges, one smack for every kid. “I’ll smack ya’ wit’ a bag a’ aranges,” he’d yell. Oh, wait, Santa was handing out a treat bag of oranges and candy to the kids as they entered the gymnasium and was saying “Merry Christmas, ho-ho-ho!” as only Santa can.
“You’re not allowed to leave the gymnasium once you go in, okay class?” “OK Miss MacDonald!” We were taught to reply in unison by that point.
Handed the lyrics to the songs we were about to sing, we were shown a spot on the gymnasium floor–our seat. I was at the end of the single-file line, and given the exact spot for a person who gets up and wanders away…
Deciding that the treat bag would be better off in my locker, I got up, walked out the gymnasium door, down the hallway to the far side of the school, and placed the treat bag in my locker—I came back almost as fast as leaving. I was responsible that way. I broke the rules, so I figured I should return promptly.
Except when I returned, I didn’t know they wouldn’t remember I had already entered the gymnasium— there were different teachers outside giving the kids the rules. And there was Santa. At least he’d remember he just saw me! Santa knew all the kids!
But he didn’t remember me, either.
“Please take a treatbag!” he smiled his words to me…but, Santa, surely you’ll remember – why the panicwhythepanic? I didn’t want to tell on myself... I saw his plan. He was trying to force me to say that I had left the gymnasium!
“Um. No thank-you.” Take that red man! Manners: I’ll beat you at your own game.
“Please take a treatbag! There’s one bag for every child!” This guy was good, but I’m an Aries-Taurus cusper…I’m stubborn, and I have a fire in my belly! “No thank-you. Really. I don’t want it.” I’m running out of manners. There’s not much more I can take.
“Please take a bag and enter the gymnasium.” The Principal! “Yes, Mr. Stynsky.” What could I do? I had to take the bag. So now I had two, and I really didn’t even want the one. Why would I want to add to the whole bowl of oranges at home? And my three sisters were going to bring theirs home too.
This doesn’t even bring me to the point that gives me a blush…
Skip forward in the memory to the point we're all in the classroom, my teacher was obviously distressed. “What’s wrong Miss MacDonald?” one of the seven-year olds asked. I was a nervous wreck. I had a sick feeling in my stomach that wouldn’t go away. I had an extra bag by accident, and I was going to get heck (that’s what we kids called ‘getting in trouble’ back then – get heck – we were efficient if nothing else).
“Well class, I shouldn’t be telling you this, but it hurts me to say that we were short one treat bag. So a student didn’t get one. I’m not sure how this happened.”
Nope. This still isn’t the moment that really gets the rush going…
I felt for her, and my stomach started to relax as I put up my hand to say, “They can have mine. I didn’t want it anyway.” It seemed like it was a relief to her as well… a large smile revealed itself from beneath the worry as she said, “You see class…” (and here’s the rush of embarrassment). "I can’t let you give up your present, that was for you!”
“Please.” I said, walking towards her with the treat bag in my hand. “My sister doesn’t like oranges, so I can just have hers.” What made it even worse was when the day was over, everyone was offering me their treat bag.
Yeah. That was the moment. The undeserved recognition of giving something up for others was one thing, when really I stole it in the first place—under duress maybe, but still… it was the continued undeserved praise from others that really makes recalling this whole embarrassing event a slightly blush-inducing memory burial.
Blackblack
Breathe Owl Breathe
Ben + Vesper
- whisper it spitting (10x fast)
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