DIARY: Tantrums of Childhood

8th Day

I was missing for eight hours after my very first day of first grade and mobilized the entire police force of the rural town where I grew up.

Before I was old enough for school, my (single) mom used to drop me off at a daycare place every day and pick me up every evening. This was in 1986, so way before cell phones or pagers were common. When I got old enough for first grade, my mom took me out of daycare because it was expensive and school would be my daycare... My school was brand new, so my first day was also the first day the school was open. It was also the principal's first day as a principal and my teacher's first day as a full-time teacher...

The first day at school was perfectly normal: I wrote ABCs, drew pictures with crayons, etc. Just like in daycare. My only specific memory was the cafeteria staff bringing our lunches to us in the classroom, because the construction in the cafeteria wasn't complete yet.

School gets out, and I head to the buses, staring dutifully at the bus number my mom wrote on my hand... but the after-school pickup van from the daycare we used to attend was also there. The staffer from the daycare recognized me as I was walking by and called out, "Hey! We're over here. Come on, we're about to leave!" I guess she didn't know or didn't remember that my mom had taken me out of daycare. Anyhow, this lady was a known adult authority figure, so I assumed plans had changed, and I got on the bus.

My mom gets off work and waits at my bus stop... I don't get off the bus. She calls the school, and they mobilize the whole staff to look for me... They don't find me. Hours have passed, and she's in full freak-out mode... She calls the police. The police start searching the fields and farms near the school, [but no luck]. They bring in more officers and more officers until pretty much the entire police force of this tiny town is looking for me. Meanwhile, my principal and my teacher are having the worst day of their lives... How could they lose a f*cking six-year-old on their very first day?!

All the searching turns up nothing, and it's past midnight now, so some poor officer had to tell my mom, "Ma'am, you should go home. We'll keep looking all night, but we won't be able to find much until the morning." My mom goes home thinking her baby is probably [gone] and arrives home to find her answering machine full with messages from the daycare.

So... yeah. I managed to upset an entire school system and traumatize my mom on my first day of school. I still refuse to accept responsibility. I was just doing what the grown-ups told me.