Flashback Friday: Kindergarten Sucks

I find myself thinking about kindergarten a lot these days. My nephew started kindergarten this year, and every time I hear about him going to school, I just feel so bad for him. From what I understand, he actually enjoys it, but I don't really see how that could be possible. School is the worst. But kindergarten is the worst of the worst.

Preschool was all fun and games. I went for a few hours a day, a few times a week, maybe. Once, we even had a beach day where we got to wear our bathing suits inside and they filled little plastic swimming pools with sand and water. Fun, right?

Well there was none of that in kindergarten.

But it wasn't just the lack of indoor beach parties working against kindergarten. My teacher was also kind of a jerk. Her name was Mrs. Randolph. Upon getting my class assignment, I thought she sounded alright. Randolph reminded me a lot of Rudolph, and I liked reindeer well enough. They carry Santa for Pete's sake! Unfortunately, Mrs. Randolph did not seem to have any kind of relationship with Santa. I don't know if they ever met, but I suspect Santa would have found her a little salty for his liking.

Mrs. Randolph was old. I don't know exactly how old she was, but she had that short, old lady haircut. If I remember correctly, she also suffered from the flappy neck syndrome. I'm not saying I'd hold these things against an otherwise pleasant person, but they certainly didn't help. My point is this: she was scary and even the tautest of neck skin wasn't going to change that.

It wasn't a complete waste of a year. I learned some valuable things in kindergarten. Most notably, I remember learning to use chopsticks. Aside from the whole 'learning to read' thing, chopstick usage is pretty much the only skill I acquired in school that I still use on a somewhat regular basis. I eat with chopsticks far more often than I do long division. Or any division, really.


But mainly what I learned was the horrible injustice of life. I may have already mentioned this, but it was a pretty major event in my life. One day, while we were all working at our desks, Mrs. Randolph walked around the room, scrutinizing us, apparently looking for something to criticize. She stopped at my desk, and grabbed my hand. She held it up and announced to the class that I was holding my pencil "the wrong way." The way I see it, there is no "wrong" way to hold a pencil, assuming it is somewhere in your hand. Unless you don't have hands, and then I say do whatever you need to do, but don't let Mrs. Randolph see you.

But the injustice didn't end there. Another day were were drawing self portraits. I know I can't prove it, but mine was pretty awesome. You'll just have to take my word. I was doing a very detailed full-length portrait. I recall that I spent a lot of time on the hair. Chrissy, the girl sitting next to me, had pretty much just drawn a circle with eyes. It probably took all of 11 seconds. But during Mrs. Randolph's rounds, she made sure to loudly praise Chrissy for drawing such good eyes. The eyes, you see, were not perfectly round, but instead a little more almond-shaped. Big deal. Her person didn't even have a body! It was just a floating face! I mean, there wasn't even a neck. I'm pretty sure that Mrs. Randolph only complimented Chrissy to stick it to me.

And just when I thought kindergarten couldn't get any worse, we read the story of Goldilocks and the Three Bears. Sure, it sounds innocent enough, but Mrs. Randolph decided to select students to represent the characters as she told the story.

"Now who should be Goldilocks?" she wondered aloud. "Well, Jeanne has nice curly gold locks!"

Who me? It was true. My hair was a light golden brown, and it had some nice body, but I never imagined that Mrs. Randolph would favor me for anything, especially something as big as portraying Goldilocks!

But Mrs. Randolph changed her tune. "But Heather has such nice blond hair. Maybe she should be Goldilocks instead."

What?!

That's right. She dangled the carrot right in front of my face, only to yank it away and feed it to the girl who had blonder hair. Nice.

I guess it's all for the best. Perhaps without Mrs. Randolph's soul-crushing, I might have aspired to be an artist, or an actress, or a blond person. Instead I learned to hate at a very young age. But more importantly, I can eat rice with chopsticks.