my first kiss: or the triumph of the human spirit

When I write something heavy, I usually feel a little better right away. Sharing the human experience and what-not. Thank you for your support, your prayers and words of kindness really do make the load a little lighter.

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To lighten it up for today, I will tell you the tawdry tale of my first kiss.

It was first grade. I, having thin straight brown hair (mama called it dark blonde, but it weren't),  beady little eyes, a prominent chin and a tendency to use big words, was not the girl that the boys chased around the playground. I was their buddy, but even back then I had an understanding that I wasn't one of the "pretty" ones, and I hadn't figured out yet that I was funny, and by funny I mean humorous. But I was 6, you know, and it didn't really matter yet.

But there was one boy that wasn't picky, he was mostly just working his magic on the general female public and waiting unsuccessfully for a positive response. I had my sights set on a 3rd grader and held great disdain for this other boy, who I'll call Ned, to protect the guilty. He persecuted me. I wore a patch for a while, due to a lazy eye, and he was one who led the "Pirate" charge, as well as many other acts of verbal aggression and psychological terror.

Our school was held in an old Baptist church and a series of trailers that had been renovated to be classrooms. On the day in question, I was standing in front of our room, chatting with some other girls and not really paying attention to the group of boys standing nearby, plotting evil in their hearts. Suddenly two of the boys broke from the pack and ran toward me. I must have been a pitiful sight, standing there frozen in  my faded plaid uniform  while all the other girls scattered. A boy I'll call Chuck (because I wouldn't want to call out Chris McFarland in front of the whole internet) held my arms back and yucky old Ned kissed me right on the mouth.

There I was, alone in the universe, shoes planted in the patchy browning grass with my thin arms pinned behind me by another 6 year old, and the slobber of a beastly boy on my lips. I squirmed against my restraints and wrestled one arm free. In a microsecond, my fingers curled tightly around the thin plastic handle of my lunchbox as it slammed into the side of Ned's face with a surprisingly satisfying THWACK.

His cohort fled before the echoes of his panic even came back to us. Teachers materialized out of buildings all around, surrounding poor little Ned with a red square rising from the side of his head, a wide-open screaming mouth, and trembling finger pointed at me, the victim.

They marched us both to the principal's office, he in his pain and his shame and me, head held high in righteous indignation. We both got in trouble, but I do not regret my actions, to this day.

My next kiss was the MOG. I did not hit him with a lunchbox.