I was lucky enough to remember the very first moment I realized that I was cooler than someone else.
I was six and in Ms. Floor’s first grade class.Ms. Floor was the tallest woman I had ever met. It was pretty funny her name was Floor considering how much time she spent towering above it.In later years, I would ask my mom if Ms. Floor was really that tall, or if it was my warped childhood imagination. My mom assured me she was really that tall; 6’ 1” to be exact.
Ms. Floor was a good teacher though, so I am happy she found her way to Evergreen Elementary instead of the WNBA.
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Exactly 98% of women during the late 80s time period were named “Amanda,” “Jessica,” and/ or “Ashley.”
As any child born in the late 80s knows, all females of that era are named “Amanda,” “Jessica,” and/ or “Ashley.” (See above for the scientific quote I made up) The other 1% had the name “Rebekah”, and the other 1% had YOUR name (if you are a girl who was born in the late 80s).I do not have to cite any proof because everyone knows this.
Still don’t believe me? Watch the TV show “Recess.” There are approximately 247 girls named “Ashley” at their fictional elementary school which I happen to know is based on real data from real American elementary schools country-wide. I am sure of this; there is no need to dispute it.
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Still don’t believe me? There were exactly 3 “Jessica’s” in Ms. Floor’s first grade class. I am not joking. Assume half the children in a class of 20 were girls, that would make 3/10 girls in my class named “Jessica”. That is 30%; which is also sincerely ridiculous.
“How do you tell them apart?” The stupid reader who has no experience with name-pluralism may ask. When more than one child has the same first name we have to go to the last initial as in, “John C. and I went to John A.’s house after school on Friday.” This makes everything very clear and everybody knows this (unless you are the stupid reader who has no experience with name-pluralism)
This proved problematic because Ms. Floor would have had two “Jessica H”s; as in “Jessica H.”, the other “Jessica H.”, and “Jessica S.” To solve that problem we went to the first and second initial. We then had Jessica Ha, Jessica Ho, and Jessica S. Mrs. Floor was full of solutions.
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Now for those who may not know, my last name also starts with the letter S. Because I was the only “Rebekah” in the class, no one really cared about my last name; which was fine by me. I guess if one were seriously curious they could have turned their head to the left to see the class list written on the wall.
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Jessica S. apparently had what she thought as a clever sense of humor.
One day she pulled my arm to her and pointed out the clever, clever realization that both our last names started with the letter S. No matter that my last name was Sousae and hers was something like Smith or Samsonvillesmithson.
She looked me in the eye; which was rather scary because her face looked so happy it might explode. “We can tell everyone we are sisters!” Jessica S.’s maniac expression beamed the message that “this was the bestest idea ever and Rebekah is lucky I chose to share this experience with her rather than Megan S”!
Here was the creepy part, not only was I not friends with Jessica S, I barely knew her! However, I went along with it because, after all, what six year-old doesn’t want to have a friend that instantly accepts them as their sister?
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Jessica S. dragged me to one unsuspecting classmate named Brett and told him of our new found sisterhood (since both are last names started with the letter S). Even "six year-old" me knew this was lame.
Who would believe we were sisters since both are last names started with the letter S? What if he turned left and saw the remaining letters of our last name on the class list? That is the first thing I would have done.
Brett just gave us a stupid look and said, “OK…” The sad thing is he did not even care enough to tell us we were stupid. Did I mention we were all six?
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After our brief encounter with Brett, I had fully realized how seriously lame this was. He did not even care enough to call us out as the liars we were.
We spent the whole day running to each person in the class so Jessica S. could proudly announce that we were long-lost sisters (since “both are last names started with the letter S”). Jessica S. looked so excited the whole time, and I just ended up dragging my feet more and more (all the while regretting that “both are last names started with the letter S”). “You don’t believe we are long-lost sisters? Well how come both our last names start with the letter S!” she would cleverly declare. (Also do not look at the list of class names to your left.)
And by “whole day” I really mean the “whole day”. We spent class, recess, more class, lunch, and more class telling everybody this “clever” lie for no apparent reason.
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It was now the end of the day and time to reflect on our new found sisterhood which I did not care for in the least. “Wasn’t that so much fun Rebekah?!” There was no end to her madness.
“Of course, Jessica S! This was about as much fun as whacking a pack of badgers. I am embarrassed at your lack of intellect. This was border-line insane. No one would believe we are sisters “because our last names start with the letter S”. I know we are 6, but come on! Show some respect for the general intelligence of our peers”
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Instead I said, “Super fun! We fooled them all!”
I avoided her for weeks. Even at six I had a reputation to hold on to. My young classmates thinking I was an idiot during the first week of school would win me no favors.
At the wise age of six, I simply told myself, “I am too cool for this crap.”
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