The Corona Chronicles: Chapter 22 - The Pres Says It's Over -- Everybody To The Waterpark!

Source

Cases are down, deaths are down, hospitalizations are... whoops, wrong direction!

I got my 2nd booster a few weeks (four shots in total, now) ago. Side effects included a headache and fever, but definitely a milder one than I had with my first booster in 2021.

* * *

So the 2022-23 school year began a while back, and aside from a few scraps of evidence from last year's social distancing attempts still sticking to the hallway floors, there is very little to suggest that we're still in a pandemic.

We're back to packing the kids onto benches in the cafeteria. Last year we put six to a table. Now, it's at least 24.

Masks are optional -- and hardly anyone wears one. If I had to hazard a guess, I'd say it's about 7%.

Last year, the district provided us with boxes of tissues. This year they were like "nah, you're on your own."

Hand sanitizer bottles are there, but we don't have to worry about running out of the stuff, because the bottles largely get ignored.

When a kid has a cough, we don't test them or call home anymore. We just check for a fever using the forehead scanner... and if it doesn't indicate that the kid's a walking space heater, we send them back to class.

It feels like we've just thrown out all precautions.

It really feels like we're asking for disaster.

Meanwhile, these kids... it's awful. I'm working a lot with fourth graders this year. They went to Kindergarten. Their first grade year got cut short. Their second grade year was spent mostly online. Their third grade year was in-person, but socially distanced. And now they're in fourth grade and all packed in, and teachers are like, "No talking!" "Sit up straight!" "Stop fidgeting!" and IT MAKES ME SO ANGRY. There are kids in these classes with both diagnosed and undiagnosed ADD who aren't "allowed" to fidget. There are neurodivergent kids who are stimming and self-soothing and being told off for doing it. 

I bet some of them miss being online. I know I do.

I changed schools this year because I needed a new environment, but I've been quickly reminded the grass is never greener... it's the exact same grass, just on somebody else's lawn.

I did stop doing the weekly (eventually every-other-week) covid testing thing. I don't remember if I mentioned it here, but there was this program where educators could be tested twice a month, at home, and mail in their samples. I didn't mind taking the tests, but it was a pain getting to a UPS store and mailing them every 1-2 weeks. For a while I dropped them off at this auto repair shop (UPS drop-off point), until one day they said they couldn't take "bodily fluid" packages anymore. After that I made twice-month trips to a nearby convenience store/pot shop. This year, I decided if I needed to, I could use at-home tests and get my own results... and if I do get really sick, I'll go to a testing site... if there are any left.

Shout out to all the people still wearing masks in public.

Shout out to the people who can't go out in public.

Shout out to anyone who's made it to the end of this rambling post.

Mrs. M.

Mrs. M. was obsessed with space.

It was all over her classroom. Huge posters of the nine planets. Massive charts depicting the solar system. Moons and stars and comets and meteors and all manner of celestial objects. 

Rumor had it Mrs. M. had even applied for the Teacher In Space Project a few years prior. Suffice it to say, she didn't make the finals. Maybe it was her advanced age. I'd like to think that if the program had chosen people based on their enthusiasm for space, Mrs. M. would have been sent up in the first rocket available and left to orbit the globe indefinitely.

Back on earth, though, she was a fourth grade teacher. She ran our school's Young Astronauts program. She took kids on field trips to air shows. 

But I did not want her as my fourth grade teacher.

I didn't mind that she was the oldest teacher in our school -- just one year away from retirement, in fact. She looked like a cute little old granny, the kind that bakes gingerbread men and then watches in dismay as they leap out of the oven and make a bid for freedom. She also could have passed for Mrs. Claus if the situation demanded it. She seemed very, very old. 

Actually, she was sixty-four.

What I did mind was all that SPACE. I didn't care one iota about Neptune or Andromeda or what the heck was on the other side of the moon. If Mrs. M had been obsessed with cats, maybe we could've bonded. But space? Blah.

But there it was, right there on her class roster in September, 1989 -- my name. There was no helping it. I was doomed to spend fourth grade with Mrs. M.

"I'm sure she'll be a fine teacher," my parents tried to assure me.

"But she's obsessed with space," I replied. I was convinced that all of curriculum in Mrs M.'s classroom would be coming straight from the archives at NASA.

On the first day of school, as Mrs. M. explained the classroom procedures, I was actually excited to learn that she had something in the back of her classroom she called "The Laboratory." WELL! Flasks, beakers, test tubes, chemicals?!? Now that was some science I could get behind!

It took me about half a day to realize that there wasn't a laboratory at the back of the classroom. No, actually, that's where she kept the passes... to the lavatory. 

The freaking bathroom.

Mrs. M. didn't like to be corrected. You may be asking, who does? But my previous teacher -- the warm, kind, sweet Mrs. R. -- had always been open to feedback. If she was writing on the chalkboard and left off a comma, she didn't mind if one of her students raised a hand to tell her so. She'd smile and correct her "mistake," happy that we were keen enough to notice a need for punctuation.

When we tried that with Mrs. M., she thought we were being insolent, and barked at us to stop raising our hands and trying to correct her.

I remember one day in particular, Mrs. M. was being so mean -- I don't even remember what she did, but she was mean, dangit -- and some us kids gathered in solidarity at recess. One of my classmates -- all 4 ft. 3 inches of her -- announced that she was going to tell her mom to tell the school board to get Mrs. M. fired. For a few days, we had hope that this would happen. That we would come to school one morning and find a sweet, kindly teacher (maybe Miss Nelson?) sitting at Mrs. M's desk. But nothing ever came of it.

Sometimes Mrs. M could be quite pleasant. I ended up joining the Young Astronauts program that she coordinated. It met Wednesdays after school. That year, Mrs. M. had this grandiose plan to construct a living-room-sized bubble out plastic. It was to be constantly inflated by a box fan. I helped construct it. And it worked! In our classroom, we ended up taking turns, in groups of 4 or 5, spending all day inside the bubble, doing our schoolwork in there and pretending it was a space station. (We were allowed trips outside to the bathr -- uh lavatory, if need be.) We ate that freeze-dried Astronaut Ice Cream stuff, which felt like a treat.

Outside the bubble, the busywork she gave us was a bit much. Each week, she'd assign huge packets of homework. There was always at least one worksheet that demanded I put words into alphabetical order. I hated it. I was terrible at it. I slowly plodded my way through the packet each week, sometimes finishing it, sometimes not.

And then there were the times she made me cry. 

The first time, we were doing some kind of paper-folding activity with a group of kids from the grade below. Mrs. M. was demonstrating what to do. I couldn't keep up. I've never been great at following "movement" directions. I had a heck of a time in dance classes later on in life. It wasn't that I couldn't learn the steps -- I was just slower to catch on than most.

So there I was, trying my best to follow Mrs. M.'s paper-folding directions, and I was falling behind. And then she spoke directly to me. I don't remember her exact words, but it was essentially this: "Molly, I expected you to be able to do this activity and set an example for the younger students."

Yeouch. And she said this in front of those younger students. 

And so I cried. And she didn't care.

A few months later, we were supposed to be making beavers out of clay. The beaver is Oregon's state animal, and we were in the throes of our Oregon History unit. In fact, that very night we were having an event at school where we all had to dress as pioneers. My parents had helped me construct a covered wagon model, which was being pulled by Playmobil oxen (or possibly cows.)

But that clay beaver was a challenge. I'd never been good with clay. Perhaps that was because we weren't given too many opportunities to use it. And now we were given a lump of it and expected to make a beaver.

And Mrs. M. kept coming around and berating me because my beaver's tail wasn't flat enough.

And no matter how hard I tried to make the tail perfect, it wasn't good enough, and she let me know it.

And I began to cry. She didn't care.

And when I went home that afternoon, I told my parents I did NOT want to go to the pioneer event at school that evening. But they made me go anyway. And I had to walk into my classroom, now wearing a bonnet, and pretend like I didn't have the keen desire to chuck 28 clay beavers at my teacher's face.

Actual photo of me channeling my inner Nellie Oleson and contemplating the throwing of 28 clay beavers.

For years afterward, I resented Mrs. M. for these moments. I partly blamed her for the fact that I was hesitant to pursue art classes in high school. I loved art, but Mrs. M. had made it clear that art wasn't supposed to be fun. It was supposed to be perfect. And if it wasn't up to her standards, you were going to hear about it. 

It wasn't until I became a teacher's assistant as an adult that I finally came to realize Mrs. M. was only human. She'd been unkind, yes, but I don't think she was deliberately malicious. She was in her sixties, just one year away from retirement. I've found that a lot of teachers in that stage of teaching tend to be unyielding. If their methods have worked for 30 years, why bother to change? Who cares if the kids are not all right?

Looking at our class photo, I know it couldn't have been an easy year for Mrs. M. I see several faces that I recall as being troublemakers. Maybe she was just over it.

Still, out of all the teachers I had in elementary school, Mrs. M. was the only one who made me feel so terrible.

It's hard to let that go.

All I can do now is try to be less like her, and more like my beloved Mrs. R, Mr. S., or Mr. M.

Thank goodness for them.

Rest In Agitation

I'd tried knocking on the bus door. I'd tapped on a window across from where he sat. Coming around to his side of the bus, I rapped on the window he was leaning against.

No response.

The bus driver was sitting toward the back of the yellow school bus, apparently not moving. Through the high bus windows, we -- me and the Kindergarteners who were supposed to be getting on the bus -- could only see the top of his gray-haired head. Wake up, man! Open the door! You've got children waiting! They want a ride home!

Maybe he'd fallen asleep? But the bus had arrived at the school mere minutes before, so that wasn't likely. Unless he had narcolepsy. Or maybe he was on his phone? Or maaaybe he'd hurt himself while doing the whole pre-boarding bus check and was now in peril?

Knock, knock, knock... "Hello?"

Nothing.

And that's when I blurted: "I think he's dead."

Thoughts, in the following order:

The bus driver is dead. What am I going to tell the children!?
How are the kids gonna get home NOW?
Who do I tell? Will any teacher do, or should I go straight to the principal?

But it turns out all those thoughts were unnecessary. As I made my way back to where the Kindergarteners were waiting, I heard one cry: "I see him! He's standing! He's coming to the front of the bus!"

Door opens, kids board.

It's... it's a miracle?!

What had the bus driver been doing? Had he just been making a phone call? Was he ignoring the knocking on purpose? What had finally gotten the bus driver off his butt? My knocking hadn't seemed to elicit any response. Had he...

Oh no...

Had he HEARD me say I thought he was dead?

Face + palm.

Well, whatever works, I guess....

Let this be a lesson to you: Do your job properly, or this woman might just declare you dead.

Mrs. B.

On the first day of 7th grade, I had a run-in with my new math teacher. She didn't like my shoes. 

More to the point, she didn't like the fact that I was wearing shoelace-less Keds. 

I hadn't even made it past the threshold of the classroom when Mrs. B. barked at me that my shoes were unsafe and that I needed to get laces for them.

She had never met me and didn't know my name. Instead of looking at my face as I entered her classroom for the first time, she was looking at my footwear. She disapproved and made it known.

Welcome to middle school!

That night I went home, found some spare laces, and threaded them through my shoes' eyelets.

The following day, Mrs. B. stopped me at the classroom door to admonish me for wearing a backpack. "No backpacks in the classroom!"

Sheesh, lady!

Navigating the hallways in middle school wasn't easy. With only 4 minutes "passing time" between periods, there wasn't enough time to go to your locker, especially if your classes were far apart. That year, before math class, I had band, on the other side of the building. I had to carry my drumsticks with me. I needed something to carry them in, didn't I? I thought a backpack was a good solution.

Mrs. B. thought otherwise.

Two days of middle school down, two criticisms from this cranky old lady who I immediately took a disliking to. What was her problem?

Day three, I braced myself as I approached the classroom door. Shoelaces intact. Backpack stowed safely in my locker. Wondering what she could possibly find wrong with me today. But on the third day, my teacher said nothing critical. Nor on the fourth day. And so it continued, and I began to learn some math.

Months went by, and I grew to like Mrs. B's class. She taught math in interesting ways.

Spring came, and with it came band concert season. One day, the band did a concert off-campus, and afterward, we stopped at the local pizza-party place, Pietro's. Besides serving pizza, the restaurant had arcade games and gumball and toy machines. That day, one of the machines contained plastic necklaces. I saw some other kids buying them. I had a few quarters with me, so I bought a couple necklaces, put them on, and wore them back to school, feeling cool.

We got back to school just in time for math class. I entered the classroom and sat down. Mrs. B. began teaching. Then her eyes fell on my necklaces. 

And she proceeded to freak out. 

She said they were inappropriate. Not at all okay for school. She made me take them off and give them to her. She put them in her desk. 

I did not understand. I felt embarrassed and confused. It made no sense. What had I done wrong? What was I missing? 

I had spent good money (well, quarters) on those necklaces, only to have them confiscated within two hours of purchasing them.

After class, I timidly approached Mrs. B. and asked if I could possibly have the necklaces back. Shaking, I promised never to wear them in class again, if only I could have them back. I remember she gave me the evil eye, as if she wasn't sure she should return such heinous objects, or if by doing so, she would be committing some kind of crime against humanity.

But she did hand them over.

And I took them home.

And I still did not understand. I mean, how could anyone possibly object to innocent little things like baby pacifiers?

If you peruse the internet, you'll learn that pacifier necklaces were fad within the rave culture in the early 90s. From there, they just became a normal fad, like slap bracelets, or Pogs. Totally harmless as an accessory, unless, like Mrs. B., you attached meaning to them.

You're wearing a pacifier necklace. People who do drugs wear those. By wearing them, you are advocating for, and/or taking drugs, clearly.

Yes, because that person, that 12-year-old, was all about teh drugz.

As a matter of fact, about the only thing I knew about drugs was what they taught us in health class.

Basically... that.

To me, pacifiers were just things babies used. Babies were cute, and therefore pacifiers were cute. Other kids wore the necklaces, so they were cool. The end. Nothing else to see here.

It would be oddly satisfying to say that Mrs. B.'s harsh criticisms led me to actually pursue a life of drugs, backpack-wearing, and shoelace-rejecting. But all she really did was leave me with some pretty sour memories of that middle school math class.

All that said, that incident with Mrs. B. is one of the reasons why I'm careful, as a teacher, what I do and don't tell kids. 

Sometimes it's necessary to speak up. If a student is being racist, sexist, or outright vulgar in a way that could hurt others, then yes, I'll let them know. I'll kindly remind them of the respectful way to act or speak. And when they make good choices, I will give them positive feedback.

But if I spot a first-grader wearing a shirt that says "I'm so hot," I'm not going to stop them and explain to them that they shouldn't wear that. Sure, I might think it's ridiculous, but that's not my job. It should be the parents' job. And what do I know, maybe they don't own very many clothes, and that was handed down. Plus, if the kid has no idea what it means, I can't just say "don't wear that," because they'll wonder why. And the answer is either simple or complicated, depending on your viewpoint.

Mrs. B. never explained to me why I shouldn't wear a pacifier necklace. She simply freaked out, made me feel bad, and left me with a lot of questions.

I'm far from being a perfect teacher, but I do hope I'm not anyone's "Mrs. B."

Words Left Unsaid

Dear 5th Grade Boys,

In two weeks you'll be leaving elementary school forever. Chances are we may never cross paths again. Maybe we'll run into each other at the grocery store or something, but you'll probably just avert your eyes and hide behind a display case until I've gone. (That's what I would do if I encountered one of my teachers in the wild, anyway.)

I know most of you don't remember that I worked at your school when you were in Kindergarten. You probably didn't even go there, then. You just know me as the lady who took that other lady's place back in March of this year. Some of you liked her better and have told me so. I appreciate your candor.

Even though we've known each other only a brief time, I have made an attempt to get to know you. As I supervised your time in the cafeteria each day, I tried to learn your names. 

I failed. Two months later, I know like ten of you.

But most of you don't know my name, so it's okay.

And, like I said, in two weeks, you will be moving on. A part of me will still care about you all, but my primary focus will be on the students who replace you.

On that note, I've made up my mind not to inform you that you're using the phrase "that's what she said" all wrong. 

Every time I've heard one of you say it, making the other boys at your lunch table laugh, I've cringed, because you're not using it in its proper (and by proper, I mean "not school-appropriate") context. You're just saying it randomly. Like it's punctuation.

I guess I'm kind of happy that you don't have clue what it means or how to use it in the way the good Michael Scott intended it.

I'm glad you're still fairly innocent.

It won't last, but for now....

Have a wonderful time in middle school, guys! Try not to become too corrupted!

No, seriously... good luck!

Sticky Situations

I was only trying to inspire the children. Motivate them to give 100%. Encourage them to reach new heights of scholastic achievement...!

I should have kept my mouth shut.

Ladies and Gentlemen of the jury blogosphere, I present to you the case: Mis4198ta843ke78: Molly Told Some Second-Graders She'd Get Them Minecraft Stickers.

Two weeks ago, I told some seven and eight-year-olds, who I knew loved Minecraft, that if they were especially well-behaved and worked hard, I would go and buy them some Minecraft stickers. 

I could have sworn I'd seen Minecraft stickers at the store. If not the grocery store, then the craft store. But maybe I'd merely seen the Ninja Turtles. Both franchises do have a lot of green. The point is, I couldn't find any Minecraft stickers.

"Maybe the children will forget about the whole thing," I thought hopefully.

"Where are the Minecraft stickers? You said you'd get us Minecraft stickers!" the children said to me. Every day thereafter.

"Soon," I told them, hoping to buy myself some time. There had to be Minecraft stickers somewhere on Earth. Say, Amazon.com?

Amazon asks, how do you feel about 17 Minecraft stickers for $13.99? Or what about three stickers for $2.99, plus shipping?

Ughhh, what had I done?

Okay, so I realize that it is possible for adults to sit down with particular children and explain the situation, tell them that sometimes grown-ups make mistakes, and beg for forgiveness. Because yes, sometimes grown-ups do make promises they find they just can't keep, and one could argue that kids are never too young to learn that the world isn't comprised of fairy-tale endings and rainbows and lollipops.

Which would be what I'd do if Minecraft stickers didn't exist, period. But they do. They're just ridiculously un-cheap.

And also, I've only known these kids for a month. I'm afraid if I break this promise, I'll lose them for the rest of the year -- or worse, I will be the cause of their eternal illiteracy. 

"I wanted to learn to read," they will tell their future therapists. "I was just starting to get good at it when this one teacher came along and made exciting promises... and then broke them. And laughed -- maniacally and cruelly. From that day forward, I never opened another book. From that day on, reading was dead to me."

So here comes plan B: use my Xyron sticker maker to make some Minecraft stickers, present my creations to the children, and hope they find them satisfactory.

Which they'd better.

Um.

Yeah, I'll keep you posted....

ETA 4/29/16:

1. The kids liked the stickers.
2. I am now taking kids' requests for other types of stickers.
3. Success.

Lesson Learned (Or, Why You Probably Shouldn't Show Kindergarteners Videos Off The Internet)

I work at an elementary school. Kids come in my room, I teach them stuff, and sometimes they even learn something. Some days, though, I do. And some days I just need a break. That's when I put on a video. My rationale is that I don't do this very often -- at least, not as often as I recall my elementary school teachers doing it. Besides, you can learn things from videos -- yes, you really can!

Today, in a rush, I was trying to put on a video for a group of about 15 kindergarteners. I went to pbskids.org, which is a big, fun website with lots of games and videos that are perfectly appropriate for that age group. I spotted Daniel Tiger. You remember Daniel? Cute little fuzzy tiger puppet from Mr. Rogers who wore a wristwatch and went to school with Prince Tuesday and the platypus kid? 

D'aw, so cute!

I knew they'd given him his own TV show, that he was now animated, and that he was, erm, apparently living in Mr. Rogers' old house and wearing his clothes and basically stealing his shtick... but I figured it was all harmless. I don't buy into the theory that Daniel ate Mr. Rogers so he could replace him. 

Not really...

What I did NOT know was that Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood is not geared toward kindergarteners. It's meant for toddlers.

I discovered this fact just a few minutes into the video -- the first video I came across on the Daniel Tiger portion of pbskids. I just clicked on "videos" and it did the auto-play thing and I didn't stop to look at the episode title, which in retrospect I realize wasn't wise -- aye, I fully admit I did this to myself, but yeah.

This was the episode:

Did Daniel really go to the potty? WHY YES HE DID! Twice! As this kid does not wear pants, he suavely hopped onto the toilet(s) without a fuss, did his business, and sang about the experience. On one instance, he even managed to hallucinate (imagine?) that all the bathroom fixtures and decorations were dancing! Afterwards, he always remembered to wash and dry his paws.

Now, I have to hand it to my kindergarteners. They're at a special age where they know what they're watching is ridiculous, yet they're not to the point where they'll actually start a riot over it. First graders would've booed Daniel right out of the loo and off the screen. Kindergarteners will at least politely tolerate 12 minutes and 16 seconds of insanity. 

I challenge you to watch the video and not laugh:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cSFLO1YubW0 (If that link is broken, try finding it on pbskids.org.)

I may have been the only one in the room laughing (and going What. Have. I. Done?) But there were plenty of other reactions happening. Some "ews." Some awkward fidgets. Several of the kids put their hands over their eyes when Daniel hopped on the toilet. 

But the funniest comment I heard a kid make was actually during the part where Daniel and his dad are talking to the guy at the music shop. An annoyed: "Why would that guy be talking to those tigers? Tigers can't talk."

There's another video on pbskids... called Prince Wednesday Goes To The Potty. Was Daniel not convincing enough? And who the heck is Prince Wednesday? Did the king and queen have another child?

THESE TWO PEOPLE had another child?

Okay, well, at least he wears pants.

The "Lost" Tooth (And Other Tall Tales)

I knocked out my first tooth at age three. Stupid accident, but there it was -- a big 'ol gap on top that made me look at least three years older. And sure, the tooth fairy came, and I got a penny or something (times were tough), but in my mind, that one didn't really count.  That tooth hadn't wriggled for days, hung on by a thread, and finally fallen into my baloney sandwich. No. It'd just come out - BOOM - and that was it.

My first grade year, everyone was losing teeth. Everyone except me. Our teacher had this chart on the wall, and I don't even remember what it looked like or what all went into it; all I remember is that if you lost a tooth at school, you got recognized somehow. Like, I dunno, she wrote your name on the chart. Wheee! But I was so jealous of the kids who got to be on the chart. None of my teeth were even remotely loose. What was I to do?

FAKE IT, OF COURSE!

I would like to state, for the record, that the Great Lost Tooth Deception of 1987 was not premeditated. It was too stupid to be so. It was just like this: One day, I was out on the playground, playing around the storm drain. I mean, yeah, sure, we had swings, we had monkey bars, but I preferred the ghetto simpler things in life. So I was playing on the ground, and there were all these rocks, and one of them was white, like a tiny tooth. It was even shaped like a first-grader-sized baby tooth. At first I just thought it was funny, this tooth-looking little rock. But then I decided to pursue a nagging thought in my evil little mind. Pretend this is MY TOOTH. Tell my teacher I lost it!

And that's precisely what I did. I don't remember what she said or if I got my name on the chart at all. You'd think I would. You'd think that'd be important. But what sticks out in my mind the most is going home that day and telling my mom I'd lost a tooth. Seriously. It was like by that point, I'd tricked myself into believing it had ACTUALLY HAPPENED. But my mom was smart. She knew I hadn't had any loose teeth. She knew how these things worked. She wanted to see the hole, the gap where the tooth had been.

Uh....

And then it was all over. The jig was up. The tooth/rock went away, and we never spoke of it again.

Even though this was the only time (that I recall) that I ever tried to fake a lost body part, there were many other instances of deception when I was a little kid. Years 6 and 7 were the worst. I think I just wanted my life to be interesting, or at least sound more interesting than it really was.

I told one of my friends that my parents were divorced (WHICH IS TERRIBLE!). At church (CHURCH! I KNOW!) the other kids always had the Sunday School teacher pray for their pets, and I didn't have any pets (but oh, I wanted some), so I fabricated a family of guinea pigs for the Lord to watch over. I was jealous of people who had nicknames, so I told people that my full name was actually Mollina. I told people whatever I wanted to be true, and had really no idea how stupid I sounded or how wrong that was.

But I grew out of it, thank goodness. Coincidentally, or perhaps not, I stopped being such a little liar around age 8, and that's the same year I got into creative writing. It was like something finally clicked -- that fakery and wackiness belongs on the page alone. I'm not saying I never told another lie as long as I lived -- I've told many. But, for the most part, they've been slightly less ridiculous. Still shameful, yes... woe... but less ridiculous.

I'm a teacher now, and a few years back I encountered a first grader who told ridiculous, outlandish lies. I will never understand what prompted her to insist that she had thirteen grandfathers and that her family did not know what birthday cake was, for they celebrated their holidays with the traditional Birthday Buffalo. Because at least my stories could have been true (except for maybe Mollina, because who names their kid that? Don't answer that.) Did that little girl really believe what she was saying? Did she speak with conviction, like I did at age six, as if the crazy stories I was telling weren't crazy, but real? And should I have told her straight-up that she was a liar? I mean, really, it's been, like, seven years, and I still think about that kid and want to throw a tomato at her.

And that's the truth.