On the Social Pressures of Kindergarten

Upon entering kindergarten I was, for the first time in my life, suddenly immersed in a most diverse society from what I was used to. I was sitting at tables with strangers talking of things that I knew nothing about. Some people were more popular than others for some reason, and they were invited to sit at the special alligator table.

This alligator was a cardboard construct that resembled an alligator (or perhaps a crocodile; the shape was a bit too ambiguous to confidently be defined) lying prostrate across it, the legs dividing the table into six equal parts. To sit near the head was deemed most desirable, while the tail end was little better than sitting at the round table to which I was mostly dismissed.

I liked the round table. I could see everyone else and what they were doing, while the children at the alligator table had to talk in raised voices during snack time to hear each other. I was only once or twice chosen to sit at the table, which is evidence to me that sitting here was most definitely not based on merit. I was not a troublesome child, after all. Actually, in retrospect, it very well may have been intended to separate the nuisances from the rest of us, and then to separate them further from each other by dividing them by walls. The alligator was a simple ruse meant to assure the children that it wasn't actually a punishment. On the contrary, it was definitely a reward. What is this world coming to?

Considering the behaviors and favored topics of discussion amongst these children, it doesn't actually surprise me if that were indeed the case. The very few times I found myself sitting at the table, I was rather shocked to find that this recycled reptile was the center of a very heathen cult.

I remember being seated one day at the belly of the beast. It's left foreleg and hindquarter stood between me and two other girls who were muttering about a most curious subject that no five year old should be subjected to.

"So the alligator came into my room last night," the girl to my right spoke as if ready to launch into gossip. The girl on my left shifted with piqued interest, and my ears couldn't help but perk up. I was settling into self-consciousness and attention starved adolescence just as They planned. These kids thought of themselves as the cream of the crop, and knowing that I was just as deserving, I wanted to be counted among them.

"Yeah, and we totally did it," she giggled. Did it? Did what? It didn't seem to matter that I was clueless. The girl on my left also giggled. This was also the cue for the boy on the other side of the alligator to stand and smile over at her from his side. It seems that most everyone at this table was acutely aware of what it  was and what it meant to do it. The boy made suggestive faces at the girl who'd done whatever she'd done, as though she were someone he was suddenly very interested in.

I don't really want to divulge in the fantasies of this peer. No doubt any reader here will know what it was she was talking about, so I'll skip on ahead. From her details I quickly learned what she meant by her story and why it was so delectably entertaining to the other listeners. These children were the pagan worshippers of a perceived animal deity made out of paper. This was my first lesson in both sex and religion, and how they can correlate far more than I had understood. Up until then I was aware of one God, and believed that it was something for my parents to do  that had something to do with the fact that I had a younger brother. The details were very cloudy from there, as it was very VERY bad, and should never EVER be talked about, thought of, or enacted by anyone until they were very VERY old. 

The others proceeded with topping each other's stories. It got very graphic. I began to panic. It was nearing my turn. If I was going to be initiated into this cult and become a disciple of their deity as self consciousness demanded me to want above all else, I had to have the most disgusting tale of debauchery with a member of another species. I couldn't even define 'debauchery' at the time if my life had depended on it. I decided that I didn't care. This was weird, and I was learning too much about things that made no sense whatsoever.

"What did you do?" I was addressed.

"Me? With the alligator?" I looked at the belly in a fright, trying to imagine this as a real animal with godly super powers. "Well," I hesitated, thinking of something truly appalling, "the alligator flew into my room..." It was like the beginning address of a prayer by now, and I was practicing my first, "and I climbed onto his back and he flew out. We went to the moon, and we killed a dragon and took the treasure." I was trying to imagine what would happen if I were left with a magic alligator or a god. I really just could not wrap my head around intimacy. "Then we came back and the alligator said I could keep the treasure, and that we were best friends and then he flew away." Glancing around at the face of the smiling creature, I just couldn't believe that something appearing to be so kind and friendly would ever do the unspeakable things that these children were claiming.

Instead of unanimous groaning, my tale was greeted with silence. The subject was changed after a moment, and I never sat at the alligator table again. Was I ever happy to be reimmersed into the culture of my beloved round table of equality and innocence. I never ever tried to lie my way into a social group ever again.

Which is of course a lie.

Timothy was one of my friends in kindergarten. Timothy had something wrong with his eyes, requiring him to wear glasses. All I knew about glasses was that my dad wore glasses. My dad, in my five year old mind, was a super hero and a grown up. So Timothy was like my dad; mature and dignified. I didn't know that kids could wear glasses, but upon the discovery that they could, I immediately devised my plan to obtaining glasses.

I tried asking for some, to no avail. Apparently I had to have a vision impairment, whatever that means, so I had to try harder. I begged and pleaded. Timothy wore them. Timothy was cool. I wanted to be cool. Didn't my parents want me to be cool too?! No amount of whining would change the fact that I was not going to get glasses. I was defeated. But the war was not over.

In those days it was common to screen children for various things, and I always got a kick out of screenings. Poke and prod me all you wanted, I knew I was physically invincible. Up until puberty, I was perfect. No amount of perfection, however, was going to keep me from my glasses. They brought in an eye specialist. I brought out my amazing acting skills.

The teacher aides filed us out into the hall, where we had to stand several feet away from a chart of letters getting progressively smaller as you read them. In my perfection, I got a perfect score equalling a perfect F. I was proud. The war was mine, and my parents would HAVE to give me glasses now that I had an impairment.

I think they sent my mother a note, and she made an appointment with the doctor. All I remember is the torture. At that age I was sure that this was my punishment for lying, and to this day there is definitely a fair part of me that still believes it was meant to punish me for lying. What was so bad about it? Nothing really, at first. I kept up the fraud through much of the appointment. I lied about everything I read and pretended not see things I was meant to see.

Oh the cleverness of me! This con was going without a hitch until the blasted doctor pulled out the secret weapon. I was placed in a chair and told to lay my head back. An aide held my eyelids open.

"What are you doing now?" I asked innocently.

"We're just going to put some eye drops in to *mumble mumble*," was the response. Okay, so it wasn't a mumble, but I was five and there is no way I'm going to remember whatever it was a doctor told me when I was five.

I don't know what it was that these drops were meant to do, but they did something else altogether. Those blasted drops burned through my eye like staring at the sun too long, and I was sure they were really going to blind me for lying. I shrieked in pain and began to flail my little limbs about in a frenzy. They knew! How did they know I was lying? All I wanted were glasses! Why couldn't I just have my glasses?! This may have been worse than the alligator cult!

Everything spilled out. No con was worth this, and I was done for. I started to confess my sins as the aide held me down for the other eye, "I LIED! I CAN SEE JUST FINE! PLEASE LET ME GO!!!" I could see the blurry outline of my mother standing there as the doctor finished his work. Fine. You win. I deserve this, and you deserve to gloat in your triumph over a five year old liar. Heaven knows it wasn't the last time I'd try to pull the wool on her, and I would grow wiser. Revenge would be sweet indeed, you sadistic matron!

The doctor didn't stop. As I sat there with the burning in my retinas, the grown ups had a chat. I think I may have continued rambling like a madman in the chair, detailing my plans and swearing to never do it again if they would only let me go. I doubt they heard me or cared. Adults do have a way of undermining precocious children. Finally the pain subsided and my mother took me home. Needless to say, I didn't get glasses any time soon, but I would one day don that most coveted diadem of knowledge and power.

It was eighth grade and I was getting headaches from looking at the different colors on the white board. My depth perception was the pits. It was determined that I was near sighted in my right eye and I was given glasses. I only wore them up until half way through college when I realized that none of my professors were really using the white boards, so I stopped wearing them.

Kids, remember this; fitting in is not necessarily worth it. If you can make it through kindergarten, you can make it through anything.