My second grade teacher Mrs. Parks was reading the whole class an Aesop Fable. I don’t remember which one it was. Maybe it was The Tortoise and the Hare or maybe it was The Boy Who Cried Wolf, I just remember that my entire second grade class was sitting crisscross applesauce in a sorta-circle under the blackboard. Yes, we had a blackboard. Actually, I think it was green, not black. We called it a chalkboard. We also had a music staff liner that we’d stuff with chalk to make lines on the board for handwriting practice. Yes, I’m real-chalkboard-in-the-classroom old. Anyway, there we were 20 or so eight-year-olds sitting sorta-circle on the linoleum floor in front of our ancient chalkboard, looking up eagerly at our teacher as she read from a large picture book. Before every turn of the page she would slowly turn the book around in one of those here-it-comes-kids sorta ways. This little game could go on for a long time. We never got tired of the excitement of seeing the beautiful illustrated pages. It’s like we craved the jitters that it gave us. It’s kind weird, I suppose. We were all just little Aesop Fables junkies. But I digress. The pertinent information here is that our small bodies would go from tense, to relaxed every minute or so, which is fine and dandy if you don’t have a track record of tooting in your pants.

There I was sitting between Stephanie, the girl with the two moms, and Billy the kid with diabetes, and they were poking at each other in front of me. I kept slapping at Billy’s hand when he would reach over me to poke Stephanie. Eventually Mrs. Parks noticed my dilemma and told them to stop, taking the burden off of me. But they didn’t, so she motioned for me to come sit next to her. This made me happy because I am forever a Teacher’s Pet. But, that also meant that I had to sit next to Dusty. Ugh. Dusty. He was a mess. He always had to sit next to Mrs. Parks because he couldn’t be trusted otherwise.

So I start to shuffle on my hands and knees to the spot in front of Mrs. Parks, when I feel a sneeze coming on. I tried to scuttle faster, but my classmates were everywhere making it hard for me to get to my spot, so instead I just kind of sheltered in place. I stopped in the middle of the sorta-circle and sat on my knees, leaned back a bit, and braced for the sneeze impact. And then I snarted.

Yeah, you’re not gonna find that word in the OED, but basically I sneeze/farted. Not to be confused with sharting. I didn’t shart. I let out a snart. And the whole class heard it. And Mrs. Parks stopped reading. And Billy stopped his poking. And the room fell silent. And Dusty yelled, “Melissa let out a bomber!” and the laughter came quicker than the snart had. My face got really hot. And my body got really hot. And my lunch started to bubble up in my throat, and I thought I might throw up chocolate milk and chili. The laughter was intense and Mrs. Parks kindly tried to get control of them, but it took a few moments. Meanwhile everyone was looking at me, sitting on my legs, in the middle of the sorta-circle. I didn’t know what to do. I panicked. I looked over at Shawn, the blonde kid next to me. We locked eyes for a split second and then I said, in a low, shaky voice, “It was Shawn.” Then more laughter as Dusty pointed at Shawn and said, “Shawn let out a bomber!” Then I hung my head and scooted back to my original spot. I deserved it. And Shawn never said a word about it.

So I guess I’m here to publicly say: I am sorry, Shawn. I’m a dirty, rat-bastard with bad gastro-intestinal issues that have plagued me since childhood and you were one of my victims. I wish I could have owned up to my snart, but you get it, man. Girls just can’t afford to be the bomber in second grade. We just can’t afford it.

Thanks, Shawn. Thanks.

M.