speaking of tests...

Having finals this week reminded me of when I was in fourth grade. I was home-schooled, and every year we home-school kids would meet to have an "Iowa Basic Skills" test adminstered to us. I don't know if the puplic school kids had 'em, but this rated our progress in acedemics. Anyone else remember those things? Perhaps my fellow home-schooled readers do; I never asked my other friends if they had to take these.

But I loved these things; and so the day arrived for the test, and I was excited. I bolted down my breakfast. Like most families, it was a mad dash to be there on time; but we finally made it out the door, after everyone found shoes, coats, etc.

Apparently, bolting down your breakfast AND being excited, does not go together well. Neither does being lactose intolerant help, when you've eaten a huge bowl of Cheerios (with lots of milk). Does anyone know what's coming? Yes, the inevitable happend; right before we arrived at the testing center, I lost it, all over everywhere in the backseat, including my favorite pants. Those pants, I might add, were an 80's nightmare; they deserved to be puked on. They were these horrible pastelly flowered pants that looked like they had been taken right off of someone's couch. But they were in style (I think), and I liked them at the time.

(I was also reminded of this particular unpleasant incident when a church member was relaying the story of how his son had also gotten sick -- on the way to his piano recital. Bitter was his dissapointment at not being able to play. But piano recitals do that to you. I don't blame him for puking.)

Anyway, back to the story; I had a trememdous crush on this boy named, of all things, Nick. And to my great horror, when we arrived, he was there!!! I felt like puking again, but I think I just started crying. My sister is laughing at me, because she knows I have a crush on this kid, and of course that doesn't help matters any. But of course I can't go INSIDE, not like that; I don't even want to leave the car!

My mother, bless her soul, decided to clean me off right there in the parking lot. She comes back to the car, armed to the teeth with wet paper towels and instructs me to stand out side the car while she cleans off my pants. Great, so now I've got the puke off, but it looks like I've peed my pants. *sigh* This is going great. But, we can't go home, because its too far away, and I'd miss the test. And I can't re-take it. And so we stay. At this point, I don't care about the test, I want to find the nearest hole and dissapear.

Nick is outside the whole time and sees all of this, and I'm of course, completely mortified. So much for my impressing him. He's laughing, and I think I'm still crying. So you have this skinny knobby kneed kid with dorky pants, that are wet besides; and then add the whole crying bit -- runny nose, red eyes, tears streaming down her face, the whole wahhhhhh thing -- and you get a pretty unimpressive picture, but an accurate one. lol.

So now, not only do I skip breakfast, I also usually stay well away from milk (and cheerios). Just to be on the safe side. Ironically enough, I've managed to impress the current Nick (not the same one), lol, and I'm happy to report that I haven't managed to embarrass myself in front of him.

(I did pass the test with good grades, however, so I guess the whole day didn't go down the toilet, lol)