By Brendan Ulmer
Ulmer Uncensored
Childhood is like a mud race, nobody comes out clean.
Whether we’d like to admit it or not, we all did embarrassing things that sometimes, without welcome, enter our minds in adulthood.
The plurality of my cringe-inducing childhood stories were made when I was in seventh grade.
I’m not exactly sure why, but that was the year I decided to be a tough guy. The reasons for this abrupt-but-short-lived change of persona is still a mystery. It was sort of my chrysalis phase where I entered as a mischievous but rosy-cheeked little boy, and exited as king dork of Seinfeld references.
The year was 2015, my beloved Royals had just wrapped up their second World Series win in franchise history, while I was feeling as though I had two strikes against me.
I had previously been suspended from school that fall for the first and only time, after a dodgeball game led to a brawl during gym class.
Weeks later, I had been trying to make one of my classmates laugh, but my little routine was so incomprehensible, and offensive, that he believed I was trying to insult him personally. This resulted in the most embarrassing trip to the principal’s office that I’ve ever had, or that any of my friends have ever had, for that matter.
My parents were at their wits’ end with me. I was their first child, and I was presenting them with a new issue: what do you do when your child becomes a scoundrel, seemingly out of the clear blue sky?
My mom told me that if I got suspended again, she was going to send me to private school. Both my parents are public educators, so that gives you some idea of how mad they were.
Private school was not going to happen, not on my watch. I was determined to stay at Mission Trail Middle School. Sure, I had lost my way, but I was a Timberwolf to my core.
I had to get my act together. Since it is standard policy to suspend both parties after a fight, not only did I have to abstain from fighting, I also had to avoid situations where other people wanted to fight me.
Let me introduce you to Steve.
Steve was a lot like me, bright and energetic, but hadn’t quite found his footing in the middle school hierarchy.
One day, I decided I was going to sit at the cool kids’ lunch table (a high honor).
The seat I chose however, had already been claimed by Steve. After trying, in vain, to dump me out of the chair, Steve pulled up a seat and started chucking verbal grenades my way, and I responded with a few of my own.
Mercifully, I don’t remember any specifics about what we actually said to each other, but I’m assuming a lot of it had to do with each other’s mommas.
This back-and-forth roasting routine lasted for the entire 40-minute lunch period, and was very amusing for our middle school royalty table mates, who were otherwise indifferent to my and Steve’s existences.
When the bell rang for class, tensions were still very high.
As we walked out of the cafeteria, I let Steve walk far ahead of me to avoid trouble, and he disappeared into the crowd of students. However, everyone was still chatting about the things we had said to each other.
“Who do you think won?” one student asked.
“Brendan for sure,” another student said.
Knowing the guy who said this, he was definitely just trying to get a reaction from Steve. He got his wish.
“Oh hell no,” Steve said, except he didn’t say hell.
The vibe in the room quickly changed. I could hear around 10 kids say “Oh!” all at the same time. Somewhere in the sea of 12-year-olds in front of me, a rolling dumpster was thrown about 10 feet in the air and off to the left.
Portion by portion, the crowd parted and I was watching a red, angry Steve running full speed towards me.
I could hear my mom in the wind, whispering to me, “I’m going to send you to private school.”
I knew what I had to do. To avoid fighting, and a suspension, I turned myself into a bowling pin. I put my arms behind my back like I was setting a screen in basketball, and let him drive through my chest.
We both crashed through a foldable cafeteria table, and it folded on both sides of me like a taco. As he rained blows on me, I knew I had done it, I had avoided suspension.
As is customary for boys, Steve and I became friends within the month.
Brendan Ulmer is a local writer. He can be reached at btu2703@gmail.com or at (913)787-4132.