I was very shy and I had a
hard time fitting in. I would especially
dread moments of forced socialization like recess. Recess was basically letting half the school
out into a large field to form groups and make up games to play.
I hadn’t made any friends
and wouldn’t dare try. Instead I made it
my mission to look busy with important things such as locating as many four leaf clovers as possible.
I’d find several 4 leaf
clovers a day and I’d bring them in to Mrs. Fulton’s class to lay them out in
the back of the room to dry right before class started. I even miraculously found a 5 leaf clover
once. Four leaf clover duty did not gain
me any street cred with the other 4th graders, but Mrs. Fulton, the
science teacher gave me two thumbs up. After a few weeks of this, I could tell even she thought I
was a weirdo.
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Another difference between me and the other school kids was where we got our
clothes. My parents did not buy new
things. Everything we owned except for food, socks, and underwear came from other
people’s houses – garage sales. We wore
things that other people were discarding.
These garments included a really awesome cougar jacket. It was a jean jacket with an iron-on
embroidered cougar patch going across the shoulder blades.
I wore it to school for
about a week and got a number of compliments about it. I had a feeling this would be my ticket to
friends. One girl, Betsy, finally asked
me where I had gotten it. Unfortunately
I made the mistake of bragging about what a find it was at a garage sale. I thought she’d be impressed, but instead,
Betsy let out a “Ewwww!” loud enough to get the whole class’s attention.
She announced to everyone
that 'Susana wore other people gross used clothes'. She made such a scene that I felt myself
slumping lower and lower in my seat as everyone laughed at me and made comments
on how dirty I was. That was the last day I wore my cool cougar jacket to school.
