Remembrance of Things Best Left Forgotten: Share Your Awkward Middle-School Memories

Can't beat wearing a tie and carrying a briefcase to Jr. High. That wasn't the road to popularity. Though the heavy wood and leather case full of textbooks was rather useful for shooing off bullies - made for very strong arms too.

Oh - and disco - I grew up during the disco craze. I had the lime green leisure suit, the glitter green tuxedo jacket, 2-inch platform shoes, big gold medallion, reasonably hairy chest for a Jr. High kid - and danced like a ostrich on LSD. That wasn't the road to popularity either - though the dance was rather useful for shooing off bullies... Tended to clear the dance floor in a rather panicky way, actually...

rbs

Well, I remember in the 8th grade, there was this girl and... Wait. I can't do this. Never mind.

Mine didnt happen IN school but....oh wait it 4th grade...do it still count even though it not middle school? Oh well. I was on a swim team and it was my first meet and my first race. I had to do 2 laps and my dive had ruined my cap and goggles so after the first lap i stoped and fixed them. Lets jus say i got laughed at by my friends and still am to this day and my coach wasnt too happy with me. ^^; May not seem embarressing but god did i want to crawl into a hole at the time.

I hated Middle school so much I cried almost everyday after coming home from school. Kids were so mean to mean I wanted to just die. They made fin of everything I did to what I wore to my family. I could never do anything right.

My classic moment occurred as I stepped out of the girl's bathroom, heading towards my locker. I stopped when uncontrollable laughter burst out behind me, and, turning around, found two girls pointing and laughing so hard one had collapsed onto the ground in tears. It was at this moment I realized my skirt had been tucked into my blue-and-red-stars undies. I never wore that skirt to high school again, in fear of those girls somehow recognizing me.

Once more, love reading your post Kim and once more, cannot contribute my own experiences.
Not that I don't have any - I wouldn't know where to start. But I'm trying mightily to suppress them all, so writing about them here would be somewhat counterproductive.
Love reading others' though. Maybe I wasn't the only wierd child after all...

Junior high wasn't easy, all three years. I already had low self-esteem from my dysfunctional home life; I think the bullies sensed this big-time! In 7th grade, I felt lost because my previous best friend found new and more exciting friends. With parents that insisted I get home 10 minutes after school was out (no social life allowed unless my friend came over -- I was embarrassed because my mother was "wierd" and not from the U.S.A. and "talked funny" [she was / is from Morocco; Idaho and junior high social climate did not promote "diversity"]). I would run straight home and read books. I became more and more isolated, until my social group was limited to 3 other friends. Later in the winter of 8th grade, my mother insisted I could get on the bus home to school, but I lived short of the bus line by two blocks. My father was watching me and my body way too much; he went to my junior high and asked that teachers inform him if they saw me talking to boys. He would follow me home at times to be sure I was walkiing alone or with a girl. If I took more than 15 minutes getting home, false accusations of me having sex would happen. (My mother took me every few months to a disgusting doctor and ordered him to "Check if she is still a virgin!" I hated those pelvic exams; to this day I'm uncomfortable with male doctors. ) I eventually took to hitchhiking so that I could get home on time. Most trips home were without event, but I did get "pawed" by some "dirty old men" that made me want to throw up. (In this day and age, they would be called sex offenders.) Once, a man wouldn't let me out of the car, and the door handle was broken off. After he went through a red light I screamed so much he stopped the car and let me out. I got home late and got in trouble. It didn't seem like anything I could do pleased my parents, especially my dad. Later on that year, during a noon time snowball fight, a bully that had been scaring me all year with threats finally got me. I think the most embarrassing moment for me was when I was down in the snow and all of 8th grade was gathered around. My friend was saying, "Teresa, let her go" but she pulled my pants down and shoved snow up my crotch. I can remember a guy who all the girls liked using his boot to kick more snow up between my legs. I was relieved when it was all over with -- I thought, "If I can get through this, I can get through anything. I lived and it's all over with." In 9th grade, I started dietiing. I felt like it gave me more control over my body. I got really skinny (82 lbs.) even though I could still spot fat on my belly. It was my accomplishment of pride! I also became a straight "A" student and really tried to please my strict parents. I ran home every day, even in the winter. Most of the teachers really liked me, and things got much better when I became the thin, perfect, good girl. I couldn't keep it up my perfection for too long. Life got easier when I finally entered high school, took to being bulimic and maintained "A's with some "B"'s included. I had a high school counselor who accepted me as I was, and it made a big difference!

Oh, Jane. I'm sorry that what I called "painful" was purely lighthearted compared to your own middle school experiences--you had the additional challenge of cultural assimilation to contend with. Thank you for sharing your story. And I am glad you found that counselor. Our educators do change our worlds.

Ahh, Kristine, the gentle ways of the fairer sex. Sigh...

Where to start, Robert? A briefcase? Good heavens, even I would have made fun of you.
Pat, you're leaving us feeling cheated. Should you decide to exhume these formative experiences, I'm all ears.

Mine were decades ago but I do bemember ...1. my swimming moment happened at a swim meet when I not only finished last but nearly drowned - I almost had to be given assistance to finish the race but just managed to complete the race :-(. I still remember the face of my coach at the side of the pool with that long pole and me grasping the water trying to make it that last bit of the way...was it to be a metaphor for my life...

I remember it was a very rainy day in seventh grade and I happened to have on these reallly cute hardbottomed shoes and when lunch time came i got my lunch from the line and I just knew that i was super cute walking with my head high and just feeling myself... suddenly I lost my balance and happened to slip in a small puddle of water from all of the water kids were tracking in from the outside. Everyone in the lunchroom laughed.....it really brought me back down to earth, literally. It taught me to watch my step and to never think im too high and mighty for anyone one minute you can be admired and the next embarrased.

I have too many to count I guess the worst memory would have to be when I was 12. I had just finished doing a test and was going to my 5 period class, which was P.E. I was alone in the girls locker room then my tormentors arrived. They had picked on me since I was 7 and now here I was face to face with them. They chased me down while I started walking faster to get out of there. The closest thing I saw was a bathroom stall so I ran inside hopping they'd leave me alone. But they stood outside and after a while they started throwing wet paper towels at me while I just stood inside the stall hoping, waiting. When they finally left I was on the floor, trying to hold my tears back. That would be that last thing I would ever do and I sure ass hell would never let them make me cry. So went on that day like if nothing happened. And no one ever knew.

I was a shy new girl in the 6th grade in 1968. I had made it halfway through the school year without too much of a problem acclimating to the new school until that dreaded day. . .I was walking out of the cafeteria lunch line with my tray full of lunch-goodies when somehow, someway the tray slipped out of my hands and went crashing to the tile floor, bringing much unwanted attention to myself along with claps and hoots from my sudden close "friends." One of the teachers came up to me and helped me through this embarrassment and told me it's okay, just go get another lunch and sit down. Of course, it wasn't okay and I was mortified but I did as I was told and went through the line again this time filled with staring, whispering unfamiliar classmates watching my every move, when to my utter amazement, as I came walking out of the lunch line area with my new tray of lunch-goodies, I SLIPPED on the food left on the floor from my previous disaster and not only did my tray with my glorious hotdog and tater-tots and fruit salad go flying, but so did I!!! I landed on my dignity among BOTH of my lunches amid tears and the compulsory hoots, hollers & cheering from the adoring crowd when the helpful teacher from before came up. . . to help me? Oh, no, to accuse me of staging the whole thing for attention!! Attention?? A NEW GIRL?? I am 50 years old and remember that day like it was yesterday. At least I learned that day I can stand back up on my own two feet no matter what happens to me and life will go on! And, oh, yeah, kids will cheer at anything!

Oh - and there was my excellence at sports - a must for boys...

Remember kickball? That big, soft red rubber ball they would roll toward you? I could kick the fire out of that thing and send it into orbit. Anyway, one of the rules of that game was if a kid was between bases, you could throw the ball at him and if it hit him, he was out.

So the first time I played baseball...

I was playing catcher and I caught some kid (remember, baseball, not softball) between 2nd and 3rd bases... Beaned him clean on the shoulder and quite literally knocked him out.

yeah - I was popular

"What's wrong? He's out, isn't he?"

rbs

I'm feeling all of these stories. Anyone read Diary of a Wimpy Kid? It's a chapter book (for kids, obviously), but hilarious. I recommend it to every one of you, especially Robert.

Ahh the teen years...all it took were minor occurrences and embarrassments for me to realize I wasn't entirely human yet. So I mastered the art of hiding in plain sight. I became a pasty overweight ninja, lumbering stealthily between classes and sitting in corners, not minding the D's I'd receive in gym class. Small price to pay for invisibility.
Others plugged away at social interaction, dating, sports etc. I spent that time learning how to word condescending opinions on why EVERYTHING is STOOOPID!! While their failures eventually turned to successes I waited to emerge fully formed. Slowly dawning was the realization that a life without failure is a life without learning. So a few years ago, with a thousand lessons left unlearned, I took terrible embarrassment at the entirety of my life ages 11-21.
Not so much a moment as an unbroken embarrassing decade.

Yorgo! I think I've known several of you. In fact, I was friends with you guys. You always had the cool records.

That's us Kim,
Cool music, movie and comics collections (though my forte was action figures not comics-talk about embarrassing!!)

LOL my boyfriend in middle school used to love to comb my hair when the class was dark during filmstrips/movies (he sat behind me). Well, one day he was playing with my hair and managed to get it hopelessly entangled in a unbreakable plastic comb! Rotten teacher wouldn't let me go to the office before class was over. Made the guy go with me and he held his hand over the comb in an attempt to hide it. The colonel from the rotc managed to cut the comb apart with a razor blade and free my hair since I utterly refused to let him cut a big hunk of hair off the back of my head!

Yep - I had an awesome collection of LPs - I've reassembled most of it on CD...

All 24 of the 18 Beatles albums, Alan Parsons Project, Pink Floyd, Kansas, Yes, Rush, Boston, Journey and a rather large collection of classical music. And the Deep Purple version of Jesus Christ Superstar (brown label). That's the stuff that got me through the hell of high school.

Actually, when I was 16 we moved to another city and I leapt at the opportunity to reinvent myself as something other than a pariah. Not the most popular kid in school, but reasonably cool.

rbs