Here’s a lesson for you all: NEVER get a buzz cut right before a school day. If your mom happens to force you into it, make sure you do not eat beans the next day. If both happen, then whatever you do, DON’T WEAR JEANS. If all of these misfortunes befall you, then all I can say is “good luck”. How did I come to believe this? It was all because of that last day of 1st grade......


I don’t remember much about that class. What I do remember is that we had a female indian teacher with a name that started with “P”. My best buddies at the time were Cody, Samuel, Akhil, and Rohan. I remember Ayden, a random short boy who went around kissing people (guys and girls alike). There was a girl named Emma who had a crush on me. Then there was Ashley. I’ve only “liked” 2 people my entire life, and she was one of them. She was medium height (about the same as me back then), and she had blonde hair and blue eyes. There was a scar on her leg from a soccer tournament, but she was still pretty. My memories of her traced back to my first few days at school. I was VERY shy, and I didn’t have many friends. Ashley was the one who welcomed me to the class. She would invite me to sit and play with her, and she would talk to me a lot. She was my best friend until I met Cody, Sam, Akhil, and Rohan. That was when I decided it was too embarrassing to play with girls, but that didn’t stop me from secretly liking her. But anyway, back to the story.
My most memorable last day actually traces back to the day before. After my mom picked me up from school (this was the second-to-last day), she decided to give me a haircut. My hair wasn’t that long, and I didn’t want to get one, but my mom insisted. I SPECIFICALLY told her “Don’t make it too short, Mom, just a little off the top.”
But of course, she didn’t listen. After she was done, she started complimenting me on how “handsome” I looked.
“I told you you should get a haircut. It makes you look much ‘livelier’.”
I knew that was a bad sign. Boiling with anxiety, I ran up to the upstairs mirror. After one look, I literally screamed. I WAS BALD!!!!!!!!!!

The next morning, I didn’t want to go to school. I couldn’t bear going around looking like Krillin (a short bald asian dude from a manga series called Dragon Ball), but my mom forced me to.
“It’s not that bad,” she said.
I got off the car and walked into the classroom. I could see everyone staring at me and smirking (everyone, that is, except for Ashley). Even my best friends were giggling! I pretended not to notice. Since it was the last day, the female indian teacher whose name starts with a “P” just let us hang around and do whatever we want. My friends and I decided to play hide-and-seek, so I hid under the table. Samuel was trying to find us. From the moment I got on the car that morning, I felt the urge to fart. Now, as Sam neared me, I got nervous and couldn’t hold it anymore. I tried, unsuccessfully, to hide it. As the gas came out of me, I heard a “PHBTTTTTTTTTTTT”.

It was so loud that everyone started staring at me. After a short moment of silence, the students erupted into laughter. My face felt flushed. I was so embarrassed that I wanted to just crawl in a hole for the rest of my life, and if not for Ashley, that’s probably what I would’ve done.

“Guys, relax. It’s natural gas. It happens to everyone!” she yelled over the laughter.

Surprisingly, that made everyone calm. As Ashley was saying this, she helped me out from beneath the table. I wanted to get out of there as fast as I could, so I wasn’t paying attention to where my head was. “BAM!” went my head, as it hit the edge of the table.

I started seeing stars immediately after. I’m not sure, but I might’ve blacked out for a few minutes. When I woke up, everyone was bent around me. I felt my head, and found out that I had a huge bump right in the middle of my forehead. Great. My head already looked big from the haircut, but now, it was about 3 times bigger. With my head throbbing, I told everyone I was fine, and we went out to lunch. My head was lowered from embarrassment, so I wasn’t watching where I was going. I found a random place in the lunch line and looked up. Too late, I realized Ayden was right in front of me.

I’ve usually been pretty good at avoiding Ayden’s kisses, but this time, I wasn’t so lucky. Everything seemed to be happening in slow-mo. He moved in and stuck his tongue out. I was frozen in horror. I tried to force my body to dodge, but I was too slow. Ayden gave me a big lick on the cheek.


I ran to the bathroom, frantically trying to wipe off his disgusting slobber. When I came back, lunch was already over. We all walked back into the classroom and started playing around. Reluctantly, I joined my friends. As time passed, though, I started cheering up. By the time we went outside for afternoon recess, I was almost as cheerful as when I started the day. My friends and I went on the blacktop. For some reason, the girls all thought it would be a good idea to start chasing me (including Ashley). My friends were trying to shield me from them, but Ashley was too fast. Even though I was the fastest in my school at the time, I was wearing jeans, so she caught up to me. In a last effort, I tried to leap away from her to escape embarrassment, but that just made it worse.

Airborne, I heard a sickening sound. When I landed, I stumbled and fell. My legs felt weird, especially the top part. Looking down, realization dawned on me. I HAD RIPPED MY PANTS!!!!!!! I tried to keep running, but Ashley already caught up. Not realizing what happened, she grabbed me, and (for some unknown reason) bit me on the hand. My friends were pretty close, so they saw what happened.

Laughing at my ripped pants, they started yelling “JIM HAS THE COOTIES, JIM HAS THE COOTIES!”

Great. Now the whole school knew. Not much else happened that day, but the rest of my day was miserable. I was walking around school with no friends (everyone stayed away from me because they were afraid of the “cooties”), a head 7 sizes too big, and ripped pants. I learned an important lesson that day (mentioned above), a day that will forever linger in my memories.