The Thinking Chair

This story is dedicated with love and gratitude to college professor, NL* who kept it in her bioblock for more than four years, and to my beloved mother who has passed away since I wrote this.

Me and The Thinking Chair

Throughout my life I have a habit of getting into embarrassing and/or ridiculous situations. At this point I've accepted this as my fate. I deal with it by writing about it and laughing at it.

My first such experience, that I can remember, occurred in kindergarten when I was five years old. I remember that day so vividly. Wearing my new green velvet jumper, I felt quite ready for anything that day. My mom had arranged my hair with a barrette, and I knew it looked pretty because she told me so. I had a new doll that I was taking for show and tell and I was on top of the world.

I was a quiet little girl and I never talked in class or did anything to get into trouble. If you were in trouble, my teacher made you sit in the Thinking Chair. I knew, smugly, that I would never visit that chair because I was too smart for such immature behavior. I had a temper, mind you, but I took that out on my big brother at home. My brother was the bad one. I knew how to behave.

Wrong - as usual.

We were all sitting on the floor, getting ready for show and tell when it happened. The little boy sitting behind me was a bad sort - his name was Daniel. He was always in trouble and I usually tried to stay away from him. I don't know how I ended up in front of him but there I was. Apparently, the temptation was too great - he couldn't resist it and he yanked on my hair, messing up my barrette in the process.

This was not to be borne, by me at any rate. I whirled around to confront my sneaky attacker and he smirked at me. I saw red. I grabbed him by his suspenders and started shaking him with all my five year old strength. I shook the living daylights out of him if you want to know the truth.

Alas, my teacher saw my angry response, but she didn't see what provoked it. Daniel put on his most innocent victimized expression and skated while I sat crying in the Thinking Chair, my show and tell dreams dashed to pieces because I couldn't control my temper. The teacher even took my doll away from me to punish me for my violent outburst. My reputation for causing trouble started that day in my kindergarten class. I'm quite sure that a notation was made in my permanent record.

I would like to say that I learned my lesson that day, but I did not. I still have a bad temper, even now. All I thought about in that Thinking Chair was how unfair it all was. I think my teacher intended the Thinking Chair to be a place of repentance. But I was a martyr that day, plain and simple. I was only sorry I'd been caught. I didn't regret shaking the living daylights out of that scoundrel - oh no - not for one minute. And as luck or fate would have it, ironically enough, Daniel went on to become a policeman.

Sad, but true. And my own course was set. Nothing was ever quite right from that day forward. To add insult to injury, my brother got wind of it. Only his version was that I got sent to the "Electric" chair, which caused and still causes my whole family to collapse into fits of laughter whenever this story is told. This is the same family that laughs at the story about my 4'11' grandma hitting my 6'2" grandpa over the head with a frying pan, thereby leaving a dent in the pan.

So there you have it.

I'm a hard-headed Thinking Chair Parolee thrust out into the cold cruel world that is life.

When you finish this, please go and read NL* !