Middle School Misery

The year was 1999. The last of the millennia. That was when I entered the system known as public education. I was 13, turning 14. A hellish age, if you ask me. I had formerly been a home schooled child, and when I entered the 8^th grade, I took my home sewn floral printed jumpers and head bands with me. Kidding. This was 1999. Wide legged jeans were all the rage, if you can recall. I took pride in my up to date fashion sense. After all, I did read Girl’s Life magazine and Seventeen when I was at the library, which was often.

I did not embrace all of the new procedures and polices at this public school with open arms. For example, their drug policy. All medication had to be turned in to the office in the original container with a parental note. You couldn’t so much as have a cough drop in your pocket. Now, there is a medication all girls require when they are near the age of 13, and have horrible, bloody periods that make you want to throw up. It’s called Aleve. Or maybe Midol.

You can imagine my shock when I learned that if I was cramping, I’d have to ask my male teacher to leave class, go to the office, and ask the receptionist if she could let me have some of my previously brought in drugs. It would have been mortification. Might as well announce the changes of my body in front of the whole class. My mom was all ready to send me with a bottle and a note, penned on the paper of the yellow steno-pad near our answering machine (this was before voicemail). I took the bottle, and I took the note, believe me. I needed drugs.

What I did was pop a few of the blue pills into a Tic Tac container, and I took the Tic Tacs to school with me. What I would do is smuggle them into my mouth during the bathroom break or at lunch. Heaven forbid I self-medicate. I did this for about half a year, until I made the decision to just go to public school half-time, so that I could pursue art lessons and read literature not packaged in some text published by Houghton-Mifflin. After that, I would just take my pain relief at home before I went to class in the afternoons. 

 A few other policies that baffled me were the strict prohibition of liquid white-out, and why did my teacher make such a big deal when I asked him if I could see the answer key for the math problems? In all my previous years of schooling, I had free access to the answer keys. I knew the rules. I had to work all of the problems before checking it. So why was my teacher giving me guff for wanting to check my work? How was I supposed to understand how to do a problem if I didn’t know what the correct answer was? It just didn’t make sense.

Yes, public education made me look like a cheating drug smuggler, when all I was trying to do was take care of myself.