Can I Sit With You?

Sometimes we get entries that don't quite fall into the thousand-word essay category, but which need to be told, all the same. We think they make good Sunday Shorts, so don't forget to cruise on by on Sundays.

Also, apparently now we are the playground bullies in asking DoubleTrouble to share her tales (see #7). And we thought we left peer pressure behind once we left Junior High! Thanks for participating, DT!

My CISWY Options, In Chronological Order
By DoubleTrouble

1. Spent my entire lifetime believing I was fat, even though it's probably only really been true for the past 7 years, and for a time in college. Why? Because of the catty girls behind me in the water fountain line who said that my belly was getting so fat as I was drinking water. In retrospect, they were probably just hot and thirsty and wanted me to hurry up.

2. Requiring speech therapy in first/second grade because I couldn't pronounce the "sh" sound. Came out as "s." Not too big a deal, unless you know my name IRL.

3. Second grade school bus. I got on the bus at almost the last stop, and no one would let me sit with them. Happened repeatedly. Although I wasn't aware of why at the time, in hindsight and conversations with my brother, it was probably because I was one of the few Jewish kids on the school bus.

4. Fourth grade. Chorus tryouts. Basically all the kids get to join. All the time. Except for me. Did it have anything to do with the fact that all the other kids were given familiar Christmas songs to sing, together in a group, and I was given a Hanukah song that I didn't know, to sing by myself?

5. Sixth grade when two classmates taunted me (endlessly), claiming that I stuffed my bra. And that I did such a poor job that the two sides were uneven.

6. Junior high, and the perpetual lunch time fear that I wouldn't have anyone to sit with in the cafeteria.

7. Adulthood, challenged to take on a creative writing project and terribly fearful that I don't have the ability or the wit to produce anything publishable.