Sorry to the nurse

Throughout grades K-3, I spend my time kissing nun and nurse ass. My fourth grade teacher makes me her personal assistant because I am the only slave that will actually wash her dirty coffee mug clean at the end of the day. I take pride in this ritual of washing the mug. My mom taught me how to clean well and I spend most of my formative years thinking I could be a sexy house cleaner. This is a career aspiration that I know will never develop into anything. It saddens me. I kiss nun ass because I go to Catholic school and they rule that shit. I kiss nurse ass because I hate school and like to go home. But really I liked the nurse the best. She was very caring towards me.

Being at the nurse’s office is a blessing. I get to hang out and eat crackers and drink orange juice. I do not have to participate in class because ‘me and the nurse’ have our time together. She cherishes me and I love to talk to her. We have all these clever conversations. She understands that when I want to go home, we call my mom and I go home.

But then one day, I was not allowed to go home for a reason I could not understand. My mom was on vacation and I was being babysat by my part-time drunk grandparents. (What is great about being young is you don't know that anyone is drunk) The nurse marched me back to class that day and I was super pissed. I told her off in front of the entire class and that is when my ‘go-home’ deal ended. There goes my big mouth again. She hooked my ass back to her office. She rallied up her control and made me sit in a swivel chair for the remaining three hours of the day and then told me to go home and think about what I’ve done and to see her the next morning prepared with an apology. I didn’t look at her once as I sat in the chair waiting for the bell to ring. I stared at the wall trying to act hard as a horny nipple. Fuck her I thought.

I went home and cried and my grandmother agreed that the nurse was evil, while sitting at the kitchen table drinking 'ginger ale.' My grandma wrote me an ambiguous apology that would place all the blame on the nurse for being an idiot for not understanding me. It read “I’m sorry you misunderstood me.” I copied it on to loose leaf paper. I went to school the next day and handed her the note. She read it and appeared truly shocked and it took a couple years for her to soften to me.

I wish I apologized sincerely to her for telling her off in front of the class. She did not deserve it. I may have wanted to go home, but she was trying to help me suck it up and just get through the school day. I was not sick. She wanted to thicken my skin to deal with life’s reality that we have to work at lame jobs for a steady time in our life and spend the actual day, spend the actual month…spend many years putting in the time. This nurse story makes me just want to pretend like I'm Tom Hanks in 'A League of Their Own' and run down the block screaming, "There's no crying in baseball."