113 Things That Are (Not) Important

#1 - A History Lesson

It's winter, you're in your portable, well not your portable, the other classes portable. The one with the good heater that works but the floors are warped from water damage and the ceiling is questionable to how long it will actually remain a ceiling. The portable that all of the other children in your grade are in except for five of you. A class that's so full that you're forced to sit at the back with the table that shakes too much and wobbles because one of its legs lost its tennis ball to stabilize it. Not only that but because of that lacking ball and shakiness it squeaks to high heavens whenever you or one of the other four classmates breathes the wrong way. If that's not enough, you're at the back of the portable which means that you're stuck with all of the smelly boots and coats hanging beside you that are still wet from the recess before. Yet here you are, stuck in this (class)room until history is over and you have to march back to your own portable with the four that came with you in the cold snow.

As the teacher rambles on your mind begins to wander and you look for anything to look at other than her, the chalk board, the floor, the smelly boots, the window, anything! The chalk board is covered with people's names that you don't care about, the floor creeks whenever she takes a step, the boots odor is starting to choke you and looking at them could mean the melting of your eyes, and the window is so fogged over and smeared with finger prints, faces and backwards Hello's that it's impossible to see anything. You start to ponder if that's why they created these hellish portables in the first place – no distractions, more learning.

Then ... it happens.

You hear it and wonder if it's real, if for a second that that actually just happened. The room falls quiet in a moment of silence, the teachers face turns bright red, and a boy from your class gathers himself with a sly smile on his face before he asks, "Did you just fart!?". Suddenly the room bursts with laughter and all of the focus is on the teacher, there is nothing else to look at but her. Some kids in your class are rolling on the wet floor holding their necks and pretending to choke on the lingering methane in the air, while others are standing on their chairs putting on a performance of the glorious re-enactment of the fart, sound effects and all. The history lesson is long forgotten now that she has farted in front of the entire class and trying to cover it up by placing the blame on the floor, but it only makes it worse. There is no foreseeable stop to the laughter anytime in the near future, how could it stop? This was the best moment ever to happen to a child and to think that you were there to witness it. You didn't miss it, you didn't hear about it from one of your friends later in the day, oh no, you were there. You got to see with your own two eyes that teachers do fart and that they're not these odd beings who live at the school and sleep in the basement. You saw it all and pretended to smell it along with everyone else in the class to try to make it raunchier. You got to witness history in the making.