Stinkin' Repressed Memories

Today my student teacher had the classes write about embarrassing moments.  When students ask about my most embarrassing moment I usually respond that I don't get embarrassed--which is generally true.  However, after some mining, I dug up this repressed gem.  I wonder how many other "nuggets" my students would love to know about my past. The first bit follows a simile structure that imitates an excerpt from Sandra Cisneros's "Eleven."

Farting during an algebra test in seventh grade is like leaving your microphone on while you take a bathroom break, or like spilling the cafeteria’s meatloaf surprise all over the boss’s new white shirt and lucky tie, or like performing the world’s worst belly flop from the high dive and realizing, after you get out, that your shorts are still floating by the ladder because no matter what happens afterward, you will never live any of these incidents down.

I was sitting in Mr. Pinkerton’s  algebra class on the day of our first big test.  Supposedly, we were the top math group in our grade.  I was nervous.  I had always been decent in math, but now I was hanging with the big boys and girls; well, at least the smart ones.  The first few problems were fairly simple—a warm up.  And then I felt it…an urge that couldn’t be repressed.  You know that feeling where your stomach ties itself into half a kajillion square knots and then flips upside-down without riding The Colossus.  Oh, yeah.  You know.  The chili dog at lunch couldn’t have helped either.  Maybe I could hold it, I thought.  I mean, there were only 42 minutes and 67 algebra equations standing in my way of fresh air, a bathroom, a spot behind the buses—anywhere to release the compressed gas that was building in my lower abdomen.  So, forget that part about fresh air.

I tried concentrating on my test.  My forehead began to sweat. The numbers on the page blurred.  They jumped.  They began doing somersaults before my eyes. I crossed my legs. Tightened my sphincter.  No good.  Clenched tighter.  Still no.

The fart was coming, and nothing I could do was going to derail the stinky train.

Muscles shaking, pores dripping, I looked up.  The students were diligently about their equations.  Pinkerton had his clogs on the desk, the Stars and Stripes newspaper covering his hippopotamus belly, his bald head poking over the top. 

With all hope of repressing the pressure dissipated, I figured that eking it out slowly and silently would be better than a loud disruption. 

Slowly, trembling, I tried to slide slyly to one side.

Machine gun fire ricocheted off the hard plastic chair.

My life was over.

I don’t really want to go into all the laughter and nicknames and teasing.  You know how cruel middle school kids can be. Your imagination is probably better at dreaming up the smell than I could describe how horrid it was.  Let’s just say that my life was spared when we moved halfway around the world a few months later.  I spent most of that year eating lunch alone.

 I don't know if there is anybody out there who remembers that wretched day of my life, but if there is, I'd be interested to hear what, if anything, you recall.  P.S.  This did not happen in England.