One early morning, during my junior year of high school, I woke up late for school. I remember booking it down the street as fast as I could trying to make it in time to scramble onto my bus before it took off. Suddenly, I felt a searing pain shoot through my lower back and before I knew it, I couldnt feel my legs. What was probably one of the most terrifying experiences of my life would put me into a wheel chair for about a week after during X-rays, Doctor visits, and mind numbing pain meds. It was determined that I had two bulging discs in my spine and I was prescribed physical therapy, chiropractic visits, and muscle relaxants for about six weeks following the freak incident. After about a week and a half of being out of school, I was able to start walking again. So I was given a back brace and a Doctors note explaining my absence and also requesting that my teachers would be understanding of the fact that I was on pain meds as well as muscle relaxants and that I might be a bit groggy. I cant even begin to depict how humiliating it was to be drooling on myself while half conscious during each class and limping down the hallways while placing my hands upon the walls for support with a back brace wrapped around my torso. Fortunately, I had a sense of humor even back then so I constantly made fun of myself and the other kids were generally kind to me. I had this idea that if I made fun of myself first, no one else would and they would also feel more at ease around me. Of course, I was one of those dorky students who had the massive backpack full of text books. If I bent over far enough, I could easily imitate a turtle. However, because of the injury, I wasnt able to carry anything. So the first try was getting one of those rolling back packs. Unfortunately, at a school of over 4,800 students, it was all too easy to take out entire hallways of people. Not only was I constantly tripping other students who were trying to get to class in a hurry, Im pretty sure I got my backpack stuck in every single doorway. When I decided that the stress of that wasnt worth it, I just got a locker to place my entire backpack in. Then I just took one text book out in between classes. Then came the bullying. For about a month, someone would break into my locker every single day, take my backpack out, steal my lunch, and dump the remaining contents into the garbage can in the girls restroom across the hall. I kept reporting it to the Dean, but they never caught the offender. Of course, I was a much nicer person back then so I just figured that maybe the kid was poor and hungry. So I even packed an extra bag of lunch one time and put a note on it to the bully. I asked them to take the extra food, but to please leave my backpack alone. Thats when I discovered that you cant always negotiate with terrorists. They just took both of the lunches and then dumped all of the contents of my backpack all over the bathroom floor. The person I am today would only put up with it once...maybe twice...and then I would Jerry-rig an intense booby trap that would induce intense pain enough to certainly discourage the repeated offender. Finally, the administrative staff moved my locker and I didnt have a problem with it anymore.
Posted on: Tue, 19 Aug 2014 22:15:59 +0000
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