J. J. Brown, Wordslinger

……occurred during lunch, while I was waiting for my fifth period class to start.

The class was Spanish I and, if I recall correctly, I was either reviewing or finishing up some homework that was due that day.  Most likely the latter – I wasn’t exactly the most-on-top-of-it student.  I was a junior and more interested in writing my stories or doodling horses in the margins of my notebook than anything else.  [1]

Don’t get me wrong – I enjoyed my Spanish class and would write quotes of the day on the chalk board – sometimes in Spanish, sometimes not – with proper attribution.  I just…..wasn’t that much of a dedicated student.

Maybe ten minutes before the bell rang to end the lunch hour, a girl walked up to me.  I don’t remember her name, only that she was blonde, wore a long, black dress, that she was probably a sophomore and that we shared the same Spanish class.  What was I wearing?  Jeans, a T-shirt, sweater and sneakers.  [2]

It was with some curiosity that I watched the Girl in the Black Dress approach.  We weren’t friends, barely even friendly acquaintances, so I wondered what she wanted.

It didn’t take long for me to find out.

Suffice to say, I was subjected to a list of things that made me (in her eyes) undesirable – I was boring, no one liked me, I was ugly and on and on.  You know – the usual sort of thing one does to establish dominance in the pecking order of high school society.

I didn’t know exactly what to do, other than listen – it was kind of a shock to be disrupted from my classwork and be subjected to that.  Her parting shot was cruel, more than what she’d actually said up to that point.  I’m not going to write what it was, because that’s not really the point of this story.

After she’d left, I turned my notebook to clean page and began to list all the things that I was interested in.  I filled two pages and was still coming up with things.  I looked at those pages and thought, ‘If I’m interested in that many topics, then I’m interesting.’

Something to that effect, anyway.

I don’t remember if I cried.  I do remember being upset and discombobulated.  Writing that list helped to center and ground me.  When my teacher arrived to open up the classroom, I was fine.  I had already chosen a quote for the day, but due to that encounter, I decided to change it to a quote from Young Sherlock Holmes (1985). [3]

Sidebar – In that film, Young Sherlock is challenged by a classmate (Dudley) to find a missing trophy using his wits and deductive reasoning. As the bell chimes out the last few seconds of the deadline, Dudley makes an assumption that Young Sherlock ought to give up, since he had not found the trophy.

To which Young Sherlock replied, “Never assume anything”, marched over to a shelf, picked up a vase and, with the final chime ringing, drops it to the floor. The vase shatters and the missing trophy is revealed.

“Never assume anything” became that day’s quote for Spanish I.

Class had been going on for about twenty minutes – the teacher was lecturing in Spanish, some of my classmates were either responding to the teacher’s questions in Spanish, passing notes or dozing – when a voice loudly declared,

“Oh. My. God.”

The teacher stopped, bewildered.  The dozing classmates stirred.

The Girl in the Black Dress pointed at the blackboard and asked, “Can I erase that?”

Not quite sure of what was going on and only interested in continuing the lesson, the teacher just nodded.

The Girl in the Black Dress got up, erased the board and on the way back to her desk, shot me the dirtiest look that, to this day, has yet to be matched. [4]

I only smiled.

Message received.

So, why is this one of my favorite memories?  Because I handled a situation in my own way, that kept it between us and did not diminish either one of us.

Which, if you think about it, is pretty cool, no matter what age group.

[1] I scraped by enough to graduate.

[2] I hid a lot behind sweaters, T-shirts and jeans back then.

[3] Of course, it would be Sherlock.

[4] She didn’t approach me again.

Note – I don’t know what happened to her after high school.  But I hope that she did well for herself and that, whatever triggered her insecurities that led her to approach me that day, she was able to overcome them.