Oil and Water

It was 4th or 5th grade. Hay-Edwards Grade School, 1-6. I do remember that we were in the 456 building, the Edwards bldg. Art class. We were supposed to bring our art supplies in a shoebox.

Don't remember just why, but I had my artstuff in a hatbox. I think I was the only kid with his stuff in a hatbox, the lone circle in a room full of rectangles. And for some reason, a little girl in the class snapped at me,

"Why can't you bring your stuff in a shoebox like everybody else?"

I don't remember this being the consensus of the whole class at all, but pretty much her problem. Everyone else could've cared less. But somehow that just blew her world.

To this day, there's always at some point that one kid I just don't seem to hit it off with. Usually they're an uptight, anal type individual, quite often with great organization and often little imagination, which is in direct contrast to me- someone with dreadful organizational skills and gobs of imagination. Their strengths are my weaknesses and vice versa.

You'd think we'd learn from one another, and I suppose in a perfect world(or at least one appreciably better than this fucker!)we would. But all too often we just see the negative in one another. The "sloppy loose camp", of which I'm a lifelong member, tends to see the " tight orderly camp" as having a stick up their collective butt, and they see us as having diahrrea all over the place. Not a pretty picture either way.

Well I think this particular individual from 4th Grade(the one who seemingly started it all)had a screw loose to begin with, based on some of her subsequent "screwy" behavior, and I just happened to be in the way that day. Me and my hatbox messing up her shoebox-world. But it's always been that way in damn near every aggregation I find myself in: I get along with everybody but that one person.

In my 16 years on my job, there've been a couple of course. Always a more anal-type individual. We have one now, been working in the building for awhile, whom I'll refer to as Mrs Howell. As in Lovee, Mrs Thurston Howell. Never anything acrimonious between us, just a sort of icy silence, as if she were saying, "Gilligan, you oaf!"

Now I have nothing against Mrs Howell, and I don't think she has anything seriously against me. Okay, she's a bit uptight, but that's nothing to dislike someone for. If anything I feel sympathetic there: gee I wish you could loosen up. Still, uptight or not, she's very cool toward yours truly, only speaks when spoken to and even then briefly and perfunctorily.

So consequently I don't speak much to her. If someone can't deign to speak to me, well I sure ain't gonna deign to speak to their ass either. And then you get your basic Mexican Standoff, where nobody's speaking to nobody. Silly? Yes. Infantile? Right again.

But all too human. As I said, I have nothing against Mrs Howell, absolutely no ill will. I'm disappointed that she chooses to give me the Frigidaire Treatment, but don't take it too much to heart. After all, there are plenty of folks--usually all but one or two--who like a guy who defies convention enough to bring a hatbox to Art Class.