Shadow Day

As a sixth grader, my class took a trip to the un-air-conditioned, broken-windowed middle school in downtown Macon that we would all soon feed into. Those of us who were in gifted classes were separated and taken to observe an advanced humanities class after lunch. My "shadow day" experience had been mostly positively up until this point, but as I stood in line to enter the classroom, I was jerked out of line by a large, unfamiliar woman who, in an angry tone, asked me if I had "a problem." As an eleven-year old who was already beginning to experience symptoms of generalized anxiety, I was understandably horrified. I stammered: "Nn...nnn...nooo. I'm sorry, I don't have a problem," pleading in terror and confusion. In response, she leaned in, and said, "Well, you're going to have one!" I was absolutely petrified - I shook my head, hurried into the classroom and sat down without saying another word. "Anxious" cannot begin to describe the way I felt, and although I ended up having this teacher the next year, I never learned what had inspired that terrifying encounter, other than some cruel joke or bizarre intimidation technique. 

(Wo)Men

One day in the 7th grade, I was struggling through a class day with a particularly pernicious bout of diarrhea. I had an exam after lunch and was confident that by this time, I had the diarrhea under control. However, shortly into taking the test the need to evacuate my bowels of some ineffable nastiness became increasingly potent. I was nervous about asking to adjourn from the classroom during the exam both because my teacher might think I was trying to escape her attention in order to cheat on the exam and because the act of leaving during the exam would draw the attention of other students to just how badly I needed to relieve myself. Additionally, a girl named "Stacey" with whom I had long been childhood friends and on whom I had recently developed a childhood crush sat directly in front of me. These anxieties about having to pass the noxious intestinal equivalent of a thin french onion soup only served to increase the evacuative urge. As a result, I began passing aurally muted and nasally repulsive bursts of gas from my posterior. As little as anyone else, I did not want "Stacey" smelling these bursts and by now the evacuative urge had become undeniable. I awkwardly shifted around "Stacey" to clear the desk aisle, the gas inflated posterior of my jeans moving directly past her face and nose, and walked as inconspicuously (as my swelling embarrassment would allow) to the desk of the teacher. I made my request to use the bathroom to her. She fumbled thunderingly through her hollow metal desk drawer for the hall pass before locating it. After she handed it to me I exited the classroom in the same manner through which I had approached the teacher's desk. The click of the classroom doorknob that indicated the door had fully closed also functioned as the tensely anticipated pistol shot of a competitive sprint. As if the evacuative urge was another racer against whom I was competing to first cross the finish line, I sprinted down the hallway and ducked into the first bathroom I found. I was relieved to find the bathroom vacant and I entered the second stall. The explosive and sonorous contents of my bowels having been expelled, my short term memory suddenly reminded me that the bathroom I had entered did not have urinals on the walls. As I quickly assessed the relevance of that detail, I heard the giggling voices of pubescent girls entering the same bathroom that I had...

The Bus

One of my first weeks as a Freshman at UGA, I found myself chasing down a university bus in a frenzied attempt to make it to my astronomy class on time. It was a giant lecture-format class with several hundred students - attendance taken every day - and anyone arriving late had to enter through an extremely loud and disruptive door at the front of the lecture hall. Suffice to say, as a freshman barely a week into my college experience, the thought of that was insufferable. So there I was, backpack filled with way more books than I realistically needed to bring to class, sprinting towards the UGA bus as it began to take off. Waiting at the stop, presumably for a bus to take them to the sorority house, were a bevy of beautiful coeds. As I glanced at them for a moment, I lost my footing, and tumbled forward, doing at least one awkward somersault as a result of my over-weighted backpack. Looking up, I first saw my bloody knees and palms, then the bus slowly taking off, and finally, as I turned to my right, the half-concerned, half-amused faces of the sorority girls. All I could think of to say was, "Damn, that hurt." A few girls laughed. Most were confused. I made it to my class about 20 minutes later, to the quips of my astronomy professor and laughter from the audience.

A few years later, one of my closest friends had a much more harrowing experience with a UGA bus: he was given a ticket for jaywalking as a result of being struck and jettisoned several feet after failing a test and distractedly walking in front of the behemoth's warpath. The same guy who had earlier broken his arm while ringing the Chapel Bell and later by punching a mutual friend in the face, walked away from this particular incident completely unscathed. Very odd, I remember thinking.

"Laytonya"

Many of my friends and even family members have called me "Lay-tonya" or "La-tonya" over the years as a nickname, without knowing or remembering the origin of that particular moniker. On the first day of tenth grade, I came into my new homeroom to find that we had all been assigned seats; however, I could not find mine. I looked around for a couple of minutes before coming across a desk with an envelope addressed to "Laytonya Smith." After verifying with the teacher that, yes, my name had been incorrectly recorded as Laytonya (apparently someone in the front office thought my name was a typo), I proceeded to open the envelope to find an invitation to participate in the Miss Teen Georgia pageant, along with all the other girls in the class.

The Tornado Drill

At the beginning of seventh grade, I was lucky enough to date one of the pretty, popular girls for...like 3 days. Between awkwardly talking over the phone for a few minutes a couple of times and being too nervous to sit with her and the other cool kids at lunch, it was certainly a magical few days. Then, one day during a tornado drill, while hunkered down along the wall with everyone else, covering my head, I heard the whispers and giggles as a note made its way in my direction. Knowing she was not far down the line, I shot my glance down and prayed it wasn't what I knew it probably was - a breakup note - sure enough, my friend elbowed me: "Hey dude, I think this is for you."

/awkward

The Constitution

In elementary school, one particularly cruel teacher had a favorite punishment that she loved laying on us at every opportunity: handwriting the U.S. Constitution in its entirety, including a few pages from our textbook with background information. Altogether, it was usually 15-20 pages handwritten, and took a few hours. Of the various reasons I received this punishment over the course of the year, a few come to mind: going to the water fountain when two people were there already (it was the first day of school and I didn't realize this was a rule so I was made an example of), flipping through the dictionary pages "too loudly," and getting up to get a pencil from my book bag.

Allergies

I hate allergies. A few mornings ago, I sneezed so hard in the shower I rocketed myself through the curtain, colliding with the toilet, breaking its seat and lid off. I have a massive bruise on my side and now I have to spend ten dollars at Walmart on a new toilet seat.

In high school, my allergies were so bad one Spring that I had to carry a sock in a Tupperware container to blow my nose in, because I had to do so more frequently than I could realistically get up during class to get a tissue.

Go Dawggs......oh God, my wrist!

The scene: particularly rowdy UGA football game, student section. The good: UGA won big time. The bad: at a moment of particular exhilaration, a fan threw a FULL 32 ounce stadium cup from the upper deck, which struck my wrist like a missile as I celebrated the play that inspired the cup's flight. The visual contrast between me hunched over in intense pain and, literally, every single other person around me jumping up and down celebrating was humorous to say the least.

/ouch

Picture Day

On the morning of picture day in fourth grade, my cat jumped on my face while i was sleeping, causing her claws to slash all the way across my face...definitely had to actually be turned sideways for my yearbook picture (my mother was understandably horrified).