Archive for the Category »Almost Greatness «

I was nine years old when I discovered that I am socially inept.

My family had just moved to a new town and I was entering the fifth grade in a new school. A public school. Besides the sheer ecstasy of shedding the hideous green and gold plaid jumpers, this would be an opportunity to make new friends.

I didn’t make even one.

In later years I met with slightly better success, but despite usually having a best buddy, I decided that friends were highly overrated. By college I had become a loner. It suited my temperament better and it made Christmas significantly cheaper.

I promise, this is going somewhere.

Our senior year of over-priced higher education culminated with a special dinner for the graduating class. Parties and social events are not my thing, but for some reason, I was there. My roommate and I sat down at the first empty table we saw. Over the next half hour, we were joined by an assortment of social pariahs — geeks, church-going homewreckers, neurotics, really ugly chicks, and non-trads. In the movies, we’d be involved in lively conversation, uniting as one sad social circle. But everyone was relatively quiet, staring at each other in awkward silence.

Suddenly, our table was approached by several Ambassadors of the Beautiful People (aka nursing students). The fascinating thing about our nursing students is that they all were blonde, long-legged, and on the cheerleading squad. I still have to wonder whether our educational institution was supplying the medical field or the adult entertainment industry.

“Excuse me,” purred one of the naughty nurses, flashing us a perfect white smile. “We need this table.”

I looked at her incredulously. WTF?!!!

As no one ventured a response nor made any effort to move, Naughty Nurse shifted somewhat uneasily and explained, “You see, we just have sooooo many friends that we can’t all fit at one table. And your table happens to be next to ours . . .” She trailed off and smiled again.

“But there are no empty tables where all of us can sit,” my roommate protested. I watched a few other heads nod.

“But there are empty seats at lots of the other tables,” Naughty Nurse #2 interjected. “I mean, it’s not like you guys are together, right?”

Naughty Nurse #1 pouted her glittery glossed lips. “We don’t want to have to separate all of our friends.”

She jabbed at us with that last “friends.” It was kryptonite. I looked around our table at despondent faces, at heads hung in shame. Some of the girls began to gather their belongings. I looked at the nursing students who were still smiling in a way that either said, “Get a move on!” or “No cavities!” And I realized, I had to do something.

I needed to show the naughty nurses that just because they were gorgeous and blonde and fabulous didn’t mean they could push us around.

I wanted to give the rejects a sweet sense of camaraderie as we matched our will against the Circle of Friends.

I had to restore justice to the collegiate world.

And, most importantly, I had to devise a way to prevent me from having to move my lazy ass to another table.

Now, realistically, we could have all just refused to get up. It was a simple enough solution. But I was fired up and I wasn’t about to take crap from anyone.

I picked up a spoon and twirled it delicately between my fingers. “Ok,” I piped up, “you can have the table.” And then I instructed everyone to lick their silverware.

The naughty nurses’ dazzling smiles quickly contorted into looks of utter disgust.

“That is revolting,” they hissed before storming back to their table, their heels clicking angrily against the Pergo floor.

Our merry band of spoon-suckers finally began chattering amongst themselves, empowered by their victory. I descended back into my quiet solitude, satisfied with the triumph. It wasn’t World Peace, granted . . . but I didn’t have to get up.

As I sift through my assortment of letters, cursing the prevalence of junk mail, I recall a time not so very long ago when a person’s worth as a human being was measured by the quantity of mail she received.

I was in college then and I was green and grateful. It was a simpler time. A time when a fat Discover card offer would have made my heart sing. We received our mailbox assignments with trembling excitement during our first day of freshmen orientation. Never could we imagine the hell and heartbreak those mailboxes would cause us.

The tiny post office was in the same building as the cafeteria, which conveniently allowed us to torment ourselves twice per mealtime. Nobody was strong enough to walk by the neat rows of mailboxes without pressing her nose to one and peering hopefully into the window.

There was never any mail.

On this particular afternoon, it was my forehead becoming imprinted with a backwards 3E as I searched hungrily for the edge of a letter bisecting my box.

“You know you never get any mail,” my roommate reminded me.

“That’s because the mail lady is hoarding it for the book she’s secretly composing about my life,” I replied undeterred. I squinted hard. I was almost certain I saw something. It was small and crumpled, like a discarded dessert wrapper. Had someone put garbage in my mailbox? Annoyed, I twisted the knobs to my combination and thrust my hand into the narrow slot. Settling back down onto the balls of my feet I smoothed out the bit of gold-colored refuse and gasped.

“It’s a package slip,” my roommate whispered in awe.

A package slip. I had heard of such things, but never had I seen one. In fact, all I knew of package slips came from second-hand information that was slightly less credible than urban legends. And yet, there one was in my own two hands. Only Charlie Bucket and I could ever know the sheer ecstasy of staring at a priceless bit of gold paper.

With a chorus of angels singing in my ears, I turned to the window. “I have a package,” I told the postal worker as if in a trance. She raised an eyebrow and went to look for it.

In the eternity that the mail woman was gone, other students began to line up behind me. They sighed audibly. They leaned against the wall. They tapped their feet and cleared their throats. They glared at the back of my head. “All I need is stamps,” one complained. “What’s the hold up?”

“She has a package,” my roommate informed the malcontents, barely concealing a smug smile. I raised my golden package slip above my head. The students averted their eyes from its glory and dropped to their knees, idolaters all.

“We . . . we didn’t know,” one whispered apologetically.

The scene understandably drew attention. More and more of the student population came to witness. And I, the chosen one, spoke words of comfort to them as they waited in the tremendously long post office line. Every once in awhile I’d flash the golden package slip again to send shivers of wonder through the crowd. They began to murmur about what gift the winged messenger of the United Parcel Service had brought unto me.

Students wept, they clung to my legs, a few fainted. The experience was overwhelming. An athlete on crutches hobbled towards the window, appealing to me. I was just about to attempt my first miracle when I felt someone behind me tap my shoulder. The mail lady, looking considerably irritated said, “There’s no package back there.”

“Are you certain?” I asked. “No stone tablets or anything?”

She rolled her eyes. “No. It must have been a mistake.” And with undue coarseness, she plucked the package slip from my fingers.

As quickly as my followers grew to love me, they turned on me. Angrily they pushed me away from the mailboxes and within moments forgot my meager existence altogether. But I didn’t forget. And I’ll never forget the afternoon I became the messiah. All by the power of a fraudulent package slip.