School. In laments terms it was a place where you went to learn for twelve years of your life, a place where they taught you to do nothing but memorize words from books, and stand in lines and wait your turn. A place where they gave you the education you needed to get a good job. Or so they said. To me it all seemed like a lie. In school I had learned nothing important that I couldn’t have learned in the real world. Sure maybe I learned a few tips and tricks in math class, a few lines of a Romeo and Juliet in English, why the Civil war was such a big deal in history, and why if you rub a balloon on your head it sticks to your hair in some science course.
I learned to read and write, and spell, and I learned how to sound edu-mah-kated. I learned not to trust teachers, because they probably all don’t want you to pass, and in fact, in a small town like this, most of them just want to get paid. In a small town like Crescent Hills, they taught you things you probably could have learned from life. They never taught me how to balance a check or how to do my taxes, or how to get emancipation from my mother who was not physically capable of taking care of me anymore. They never taught me how to deal with her death. Or anyone’s death.
School didn’t teach me how to do any of the things I really needed to know. Like how to fix my car when it wouldn’t run, nope I taught myself how to do the important things in life. So why… Why on earth was I standing in the counselor’s office right now? In the middle of an argument with her about how my schedule was messed up? Why did I care? Why didn’t I just quit? Well in a stupid small town like this one it was hard to escape. Everyone knew everything about you, and you couldn’t get out of here on will power and a dream. You couldn’t go somewhere else and live off the kindness of people hearts and donations of spaghetti-o’s and cat litter.
An eleven year old girl couldn’t walk into a gas station anywhere else at four in the morning to buy a gallon of milk with a pocketful of pennies to pay for it, just to be told just to keep it because the woman who worked there knew that her mom was sick and couldn’t work anymore. This is the only town I’ve ever heard of where a girl can be accepted into her friend’s house by her family with open arms, because of her situation at home, with no legal actions made against any of them. You couldn’t just walk out without at least getting your education.
Why? Well if you tried to come out of a small town like this without some kind of education no one would get it. In real life you couldn’t just waltz your butt out of a small town with no education, and get whisked away for a job opportunity to act or sing or dance and work on Broadway, no one would pick your out of the crowd except maybe to call you a tourist because you couldn’t navigate the city well. So even though it was stupid, here I was in the counselors office trying to get my schedule changed. So I could get through this year as easily as possible. I wanted so much to get out of here, and realistically I knew that this was what I had to do to be able to get out of here so I was going to do it.
“What’s your name again dear?” Asked the new counselor. I sighed. I had a bad habit of doing that. The old counselor knew me well enough that when I came into her office in tears, or ready to punch something she could pretty much predict what was up. Mrs. Bobbie Jo had felt like a mother to me right when I needed one and I couldn’t have been more thankful for that. Unfortunately she had to take time off to take care of her children, twins. I told her I was happy for her but I wasn’t. I didn’t want her to leave.
“Presley, Presley jones, “ I rolled my eyes. I knew that my tone sounded exasperated, as if I had said it a million and one times and she was not doing her job well. Even though that was the truth, this lady was not helpful. I knew I shouldn’t have cocked an attitude with her but I couldn’t help it, she had made me mad already.
“Oh here you are sweetie,” Sweetie? I let out an annoyed sigh. “What was it you needed again?”
“I’m not supposed to be in this class,” I felt like taking my schedule and the heavy trigonometry book I had in my lap and bashing her over the head with it. That would give me the satisfaction of beating up a little old lady, and still not getting out of the art class I somehow ended up in. Or away from the ass hole that I had somehow gotten paired with for that class, honestly my first day was not going well already.
