4th Grade Facts O’ Life Part 3

Trouble reared its head like the Serpent in our little Garden of Eden in the guise of a fourth-grade classmate named Bill Burg.

Bill was about my height but he was a lot thinner and he had olive skin, dark brown eyes, and perfectly straight white teeth; I hated him on sight.

Ok, not really. I didn’t even know who he was until I saw him chatting up Becky during recess. I had just come back from the Boy’s Room when I saw the two of them giggling away.  

They were laughing about something, and I thought they might be talking about me.

You see I was worried he might be telling Becky Fat Jokes as I was already starting to chub out at an early age, and was already hypersensitive about my weight.

“Becky, who the Heck was that?” I asked her.

“Oh, that’s Bill Burg, he is so funny,” she said.

(Bill Burg huh? Ok now I was starting to hate him!)

“Oh yeah? What’s so funny? He wasn’t making fun of me, was he?”

“No, Charlie. He was telling me a funny story about his cat named “Brambles.”

“Brambles, huh? Well does the Clown know you’re my girlfriend?”

“Charlie, are you jealous? Ha-Ha-Ha!”

“Uh No. Not of him!”

“Well, you sure seem Jealous?!”

“I’m not!”

“Ha-Ha-Ha!”

“Oh forget it! So uh what did your Mom make you for lunch today?”

Becky opened her Mary Poppins lunchbox and produced a peanut butter sandwich, a bag of Fritos and a couple of Twinkies.

I was starving. My lunch had been tossed long before lunch recess. My Mom’s lunches were totally lousy by the time it was lunch recess.

It seems one of my Mom’s Genius Friends had passed along a time-saving tip to my Mom that she implemented every day. Her friend had told her to make my lunch ahead of time and then freeze them. The idea was that by the time it was for me to eat it I would have a fresh yummy sandwich to consume at lunchtime. 

It sounded a good idea, right? My answer is No and Don’t Do It!  Every day I would pull out a greasy soggy mess of a sandwich where all the ingredients – butter, mayonnaise had separated rendering what might have started as a Yummy Sandwich into a gelatinous, inedible mess that wasn’t fit to consume. Heck, even my dog Star wouldn’t eat it.

Mom meant well. And I’m sure this time-saving trick saved her some time in making my lunches. But really? Talk about Gross. Yuck!

So every lunch recess when all the kids gobbled up their baloney, or peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, potato chips, Ho Hos, Twinkies and Cookies – I basically fantasized about having a Real Sandwich and a real lunch.

As Becky ate her lunch she would always offer me a bite of something – so I guess you could say this one of the perks of having a girlfriend. I didn’t go hungry but it was kind of hard watching all the other kids enjoy their food. 

The downfall of this situation was by the time I got home, I was so hungry I ended up pigging out like crazy on junk, which put on the extra pounds on my already chubby body. It wasn’t long before I started resembling an Easter Egg with clothes on.

After we finished Becky’s lunch we did an elementary school perambulation around the playground checking out possible tetherball, 2 Square and 4 Square games to play in but since there were no openings so we headed back Miss King’s Home Room Class.

The next day as I entered class that darn Bill Burg was sitting next to Becky and showing her some kind of stupid Troll Pez candy dispenser. 

Pez dispensers were really hot at that time and all the kids had them. Since “Troll” dolls were really popular – there was even “Troll” Pez dispenser. 

I thought a guy having a Troll doll or Troll Pez dispenser was pretty lame. Chicks loved Trolls, Guys thought they were pretty dumb even though a lot of us had one back at home where there were no witnesses.

Enough was enough. The dirty little Rat. I was going to kill the guy! I was going to moider him! I was…I was…going to have a Very Serious Talk with Him. So at a class break, I cornered him at the pencil sharpener station.

“Hi, Bill. I see you’d been talkin’ to Becky a lot. Dontcha know she’s my girlfriend?”

“Yeah, she’s your girlfriend for now,” he said.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” I asked getting heated.

“Well I like her too and she likes me,” said Bill. “And I think she should choose which one of us she likes best.”

“Oh yeah? I already know She Likes Me the Best!”

“Oh, yeah?”

“Yeah!”

“OH YEAH?!”

“YEAH!!!’

“Ok, then let’s ask her to choose then. Maybe she can be both of our girlfriends. That way, whoever she picks could probably ask her for a kiss?” Bill said.

A kiss? Hmmm.. I hadn’t considered that angle. Since Becky had become My Girlfriend all we had ever done was to eat lunch together. A Kiss offered intriguing possibilities and further advancement in the relationship.

Besides that, what I really was interested in was which one us she really liked. If she picked me, it would settle things once and for all. And if she picked both of us – We’ll I didn’t mind sharing if I got a Kiss out of the deal.

“Ok, let’s ask her,” I said rising to the challenge.

Bill and I immediately walked over to Becky who was standing by the chalkboard reading a book and informed her that we wanted her to pick one of us to be her Boyfriend.

“And whoever you pick Wants a Kiss!” I said after presenting our demands.

“I don’t want to pick,” said Becky. “And I certainly don’t want to Kiss either one of you.”

“But Becky, how about being both of our girlfriends? We could both uh share you?” I asked weakly.

“No, Charlie, I really don’t want to be anyone’s girlfriend anymore,” she said.

And with that, she walked away.

I had been Dumped.

My face crumpled up like a discarded paper napkin and I began to bawl.

Bill patted me on the shoulder as I blubbered away.

“There, there, it’ll be Ok,” he said. “There’s no understanding Women. Besides, maybe now we can be friends.”

I sobbed even harder inconsolably.

“Hey, Sarah Prescott wants to play being a Princess and her brother has a cool tree fort. Maybe we could rescue her? I have some wooden swords and we could be Knights?” Bill suggested.

“Sniff…You have swords?” I asked wiping my snotty nose with the back of my hand.

“Yeah, it would be cool. We could protect Sarah and hang out in her brother’s fort, have sword fights, it would be really neat!” said Bill.

“Yeah, I guess that would be Ok,” I said.

“Ok Cool,” said Bill. “Let’s head over to Sarah’s after school. I’ll grab the swords from my house on the way over.”

“Umm Ok Bill. Uh, by the way, did you bring lunch from home today?” I sniffed.

“Yeah, my Mom always packs a bunch of stuff for me, usually more than I can eat. Why?”  He said.

Hey this being dumped stuff might be as bad as I thought, as I began to fantasize what goodies Mrs. Burg had packed in Billy Boy’s lunch.

“Uh, no reason…Ha! I’ll be seein’ you at lunch recess” I replied with a grin.

“Ok, Chuck. See you later” said Bill and he walked back to his desk.

Later after school, we walked over to Sarah Prescott’s house. Sarah was this skinny blonde thing who played her part of a princess to a “T.” She screamed and shrieked about robbers and pirates being after her. Bill and I ran about waving swords, having mock sword fights and whooping it up a storm  And I have to say it was probably one of the funnest days as a kid I can ever remember.

That horrible, wonderful day marked the  beginning of my friendship with Bill Burg who became one of my best buddies at Louise Vander Huff Elementary.

In the following days, I didn’t see much of Becky except in class. She wouldn’t talk to me (which kinda hurt) and she avoided Bill and me on the playground too. 

But ya know, after a while it really didn’t matter what Becky did or didn’t do – She was history. 

Welp, I  started out my story trying to figure out all this The Facts of Life stuff, failing pretty miserably at that and even lost a girlfriend in the process. But heck since I gained a “True Friend” out of the deal I ain’t complainin.’

So I guess you could say it was worth it in the end.

End of Part 3

Finis

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