They taste about the same, don't worry.
So, the other day I was in Piggly Wiggly (or as U.L. calls it, The Pig) to purchase an eggplant, and while fondling the produce, legally – i.e., all fruits and vegetables were at least 18 days or older – I overheard two people, down by the locally grown peanuts bin (the peanuts were locally grown, not the bin – it was cardboard) discussing the stupid behavior of one of their other friends…I imagined the friend was the topic of conversation as the result of some weekend revelry.
One said, “And I was like, God, this is stupid. You’re being so eighth grade about it. Grow up.”
The other said, “Yeah, she needs to grow up.”
The banter didn’t register much higher on the Good Ways to Converse Chart. Then again, maybe they weren’t people. Maybe they were kids.
I selected my eggplant, it weighed 1.3 pounds which was good enough for my experimental ragout (this is the correct way to spell this word, FYI, not ragu). And unlike Aggy’s pronouncement, it’s way more than just plain spaghetti sauce.
As I put the eggplant in my basket, I had this thought: What the heck has happened to people that eighth grade should be so maligned? I can’t tell you how often I hear people refer to bad behavior, or misjudgment, or rudeness, and so forth and so on, as “being eighth grade” of them.
Personally, I loved eighth grade. Seventh grade (and even fourth) for me were the ones that were, for lack of a better term, stinky.
Yet, in my rather unusual circles of socialization (both from strangerous people and those I know well), time and again, I hear eighth grade used as the butt of all things petty and ridiculous. By the way, strangerous is another word I made up. Sorry.
I guess it’s because, for the majority of us, eighth grade is the peak of hormonal shifting?
I really don’t know.
So, on the drive back to my house, I thought long and hard about my eighth grade year. Actually, eighth grade pretty much dominated my thinking right on through to what, if I do say so myself (another confusing parenthetical), was a delicious ragout. NOTE: I’d forgotten to purchase chickpeas, and so if you’re interested in knowing what I substituted for them, I’ll just go right ahead and tell you: black-eyed peas.
(They were a delicious replacement).
So, for me, eighth grade, was not a bad year. I mean, not school-wide, publicly…personally, though, I can see a resemblance between the approach to unruly behavior in eighth grade as well as those of us entering our 30s – a.k.a Real Life.
For time’s sake, let’s take advantage of the concept of Summary, here, in discussing my eighth grade year: sexually confused the entire time (that’s not really faded, yet); I’d just returned from trying to live with my father in Germany (that’s not really faded yet, either); I was playing tennis; I was not doing well in Math, though, we were still learning to write checks in class, for some reason – how obsolete; I was in T.A.G, which stood for talented and gifted – we got to skip a whole day of class each week to do smarter things like leave the school and eat at Pizza Hut, a cultural field trip of sorts; I made fun of Band People; I knew a white girl named LaShara; I had headaches constantly; started shaving for real, my whole body; wanted to be a girl, really badly; brought my lunch, almost everyday; was a librarian’s assistant which basically involved a two-voiced woman (reverse tracheotomy) who made me re-bind books and regaled me with stories of the two natural disasters she’d survived, one on the Coast and the other in Kansas; I had serious dreams like the time I dreamed a teacher’s father drowned and then he did, Firestarter, anyone?; also, my sister taught at the same school which I’m sure had a lot to do with tempering my behavior.
You can't travel the world without a good spine.
So, you see, it was an interesting time to be in school. Avoiding truancy, but still, when in the middle of statewide standardized testing, looking out the window and wishing with all your heart that you were the guy on the lawnmower, because at any minute, he could decide enough was enough and stop, and have some Gatorade or something.
Despite the relatively low-key eighth grade year that I had, one thing affected all of us (maybe it was the heat, or the lack of uniforms) – Understanding Our Bodies and Emotions.
Oh, god, I mean any little thing was magnified a 1000% during junior high, depending on when you cut through the chrysalis.
Anger was a big one for me. We’ve never been the best of friends, as it is. As a matter of fact, anger has kept me from being truly close to a lot of people, I’m afraid. And I know myself well: my kind of anger isn’t a palpable one; it’s deeply seeded and hidden behind a great deal of social politics.
And humor.
I think, sometimes, it’s a lot easier to fool people than befriend them. Because I come from a school of thought where distance is a necessity. But, it takes less effort to hide in plain view, to hide right out in public than to shut every door and window.
That reads a lot sadder than it actually is. It’s not that I hate people; I try very hard to do the right thing. I try very hard to live the Golden Rule. But, there’s not a lot of reciprocation, these days.
And so, what are you left to do but to step back, as often as you can, and take a survey. What’s really important about living, not just about Life.
I did that recently, post-argument, with a very close friend, a best friend, even, and I was glad that after the dust settled, we realized that we’d accidentally put a lot of “Importance” on things that were, honestly, a bit on the “Petty” side.
I think people do that a lot, because, whether or not you want to believe this, the Deep South is a rather repressed society. We don’t know how to argue; we know only how to acquiesce. We worry about keeping the peace, not establishing it. Unless you’re U.L. who just worries himself right through a fairly good heart, for his age.
You know, they really ought to teach this stuff in Civics. (If they still taught Civics, that is). Or Home Ec. (Again, if it hadn’t gone the way of the abacus).
The beginning of the end.
And, I guess, though I didn’t know it then, that this is something I learned in eighth grade, and I think it’s a good thing to know, to have learned: How to Argue; How to Fight; and How to Recognize the Difference. Those are forms of Mercy, after all.
Yeah, that and How to Write a Check, those are, like, the two things I learned in eighth grade.
And to tell the truth, I kinda miss it.
The Clever Kris 