Too much for the classroom
I ran into an old high school classmate, Frank. It had been two decades since we last spoke. It was great to catch up on old times and reflect on the school days.
I found myself doing most of the talking. Frank was a good listener. He’s always been a good listener. Back at school, I remember I’d be on the other side of the room, and I’d start talking to Frank, and I would go to approach him, and he would say, “It’s all good, man. I can hear you perfectly fine from over here.”
THAT’S how good at listening he was. He could listen from any distance.
During our catch-up, I said to Frank, “Sometimes I think the reason all my teachers disliked me was because I think outside the box. I don’t play by the rules, you know? I march to the beat of my own drum—always have. It’s like I was born an original thinker. That’s the way God made me. I can’t help it. The best way to explain it, is it’s like I can see the real world and no one else can. Being that bright and gifted at such a young age, it’s no wonder the teachers steered clear of me and kept their distance. My classmates too. They did the same thing. Always kept me at an arm’s length. In hindsight, of course my classmates kept their distance. My intellect and creativity were intimidating. When you’re young and insecure it’s so easy to get jealous of other people’s—”
“It was your body odour,” Frank interrupted.
I paused, in shock.
And then, “Oh don’t be stupid, Frank. I highly doubt it was my body odour they were jealous of.”
Preview photo by Ivan Aleksic on Unsplash
Yeah, right. What an unimaginative lie. Body odor? It’s correctly called body A-U-R-A. They could never begin to understand how your visual impact affects their olfactory system. Neurons from the eye go to the brain and make a U-turn to the nose which misleads visual signals into aromatic opposites. Positive beauty is falsely turned into negative odor. This is so obvious that I have to stop, otherwise I may have to confront all your former schoolmates and slap them. On Easter? Only Trump would do something that violent, not me.
Nah, Buzz, they were totally jealous. You were always the bestest, smartestest, more creativest fella in the school, so much so your success was blinding them so they could only watch you from afar.