tales of a six-year-old shrimp

when i was a kid, i was small. pretty tiny, really. in fact, when i was a six-year-old in Mrs. Bryan's first-grade class, these boys thought it'd be cool to call me 'shrimpy' out on the kickball field as some kind of intimidation tactic. it pissed me off so much that other kids thought it'd be fun to join in. soon nearly the entire class was on the bandwagon. i'm not sure how long this went on -- in my memory it stretched for eons longer than it should have -- but you know when you're in first grade, an afternoon is an eternity.

i had always been kind of a feisty little girl. i didn't take any shit from anybody, even my parents, and in my opinion, being ridiculed on the playground was simply intolerable. my recollection of the following incident is a little fuzzy, but it was related to my mother later that afternoon during a phone call from my teacher. Mrs. Bryan and my mom were already pretty good pals since she had called my mother to out me for hiding summer dresses in my bookbag and changing in the girl's room every morning and afternoon. (i despised being forced to wear jeans or corduroys, especially with long underwear underneath during the winter; i'd rather wear a crumpled frock any day.)

After recess, Mrs. Bryan had left us alone in the room gluing little crepe paper squares onto construction paper off the ends of our pencils to make daffodils or fish or something of the like. absence of authority was a perfect opportunity to start the 'shrimpy'-taunting again. but by this time i had probably had enough, so i cleared my desk, climbed up on the table and screamed something to the effect of, 'i might be small, but I'M SMARTER THAN ALL OF YOU!' at the top of my lungs. and while the other kids looked at me, stunned, i climbed down and calmly went back to my perfectionistic crepe-gluing. Mrs. Bryan came in a second later, having seen the whole thing from the window in the door. i think i would have remembered if she had said anything to me, but no one in that class ever messed with me again.

the other day, my mom was telling me about some of my other childhood antics. we were remembering how bossy i was when she'd brush my hair because it had to be done just so and though i demanded to keep my hair long, i wanted her to be fast about it. in the middle of laughing, she sort of paused and said, 'it was always your way or the highway, cadiz. you knew what you wanted and you never put up with anything less. what happened to that girl?'

at that point i couldn't do anything but shrug. but to be honest, i think about that little girl all the time. i really miss her.