We the Weirdos

Chapter One

I remember one day when I was in third grade, and my teacher assigned me with this partner, and I honestly really didn't mind.

But then, due to my obvious good luck, something absolutely had to go wrong about it...

The teacher told us to make self-portraits out of the colored paper she had given out to us. My 'partner' Teresa got brown colored paper when I got hot pink.

I didn't mind, but it seemed like Teresa did.

Teresa started complaining how 'the color wasn't the right shade' and 'how it didn't fully describe her skin tone,' which was 'sixty percent cacao brown.'

Back then, I had no idea what cacao was, so I just assumed it was poop because it looked like it anyway.

The teacher said she didn't have the exact shade of that color (bet you can't guess who asked THAT question), so Teresa came back to our desks, fuming.

She got a stupid idea. "Want to trade? This color doesn't match my skin tone, and if it doesn't, people who look at work in the halls might not recognize me if I have the hideous color of the color on me."

She was truly ridiculous.

If I could shove a few words into her brain without saying it out loud, I would have said, "Look, you crazy, skin-obsessed woman. You have sixty-percent poop brown skin. Cool. So your paper doesn't match your exact shade of poop? I apologize sincerely, but does my skin look hot pink to you? No? Well, am I complaining? No. So you shouldn't either."

Maybe that wasn't just a few words, but every letter of it was true and from my heart. That's all that matters. At least that's what my second-grade school counselor told us, but if she lied, don't come looking for me. Go yell at her.

Since I was a nice and innocent girl (everyone thought, that is), I said, "Didn't the teacher said we couldn't trade? She said she purposely gave us a specific color."

"The teacher won't mind." She argued.

You sure, lad?

"It looked like she did," I said, repeating how the teacher flailed her arms around to indicate we were probably going to get murdered if we didn't listen to her.

She said, "You idiot. You're blind, you know! We're only in third grade, idiot. I wanted the pink, you idiot. Idiot. The teacher's not going to do anything to us, you idiot. What's your problem with me? Idiot."

"Obviously nothing other than you calling me an idiot more than five times in the last minute."

After that, we weren't the best of friends, not that we were friends in the first place.

What I found most surprising was that she just sat down at my table like we were best friends and showed me a random picture of a random guy on an even random-er website, working out.

Did I mention that it was a decade after she called me an idiot countless times? At the time, I was a senior in high school.

"Isn't he hot?" She gushed like she was madly in love, which I couldn't disagree on. She looked at the ceiling, probably dreaming about the guy.

Since I wasn't a stalker, unlike her, I avoided the guy's face while looking at the picture. "Not really."

I knew what she was talking about - the attractiveness of the guy, but I was actually telling the truth. I'm not attracted to guys that scarily look like clowns.

She narrowed her eyes at me, expecting me to say something else.

Ohhh! She meant the other hot, the temperature one.