I was best friends with Chris in kindergarten.

Chris was older than me by several months, but I was several times his size. I probably could have pounded him to a pulp with one chubby fist if I wanted to, but Chris was my best buddy. I knew him from church. He was sweet and unassuming, and I liked to boss. We were a good team.

Our parents would alternate driving us to school. I always looked forward to the days when it was Chris' parents turn to drive because his dad would take us to school on his mo-ped. I'm surprised now that my parents would let us ride that thing. I don't remember a trip during which some piece of the bike didn't fall off midway.

I was in the highest reading group in our class. I don't say that to brag. Being a high reader in kindergarten only means we read three-word sentences rather than two. I mention it because while I was reading stories titled "The Dog Ran," Chris wasn't reading at all.

He had ADD, as it was called then, and a few other learning disabilities that prevented him acting like the rest of us. I was only five, and I knew there was something not quite right about Chris. But I loved him, I really did. If I'd have had to pick a future mate right there on the playground, I would have chosen Chris no questions asked. (While, incidentally, my actual future mate was peeking up little girls skirts just few swing sets away.)

We had an evil teacher, Ms. Clark. She was middle-aged and unmarried, which was probably to blame for her evilness. I could never understand how you could be evil when you led a classroom full of adorable, big-eyed five-year-olds, but somehow she managed. She looked a bit like a witch, tall and dark-headed and olive-skinned. (My gosh, I just described myself! Do I scare little children?!?)

The assignments in kindergarten are fairly simple. Write the letter H. Color the horse pink. Spell "he."

We had an imaginary astronaut that delivered a special assignment to our classroom every day while we were gone to recess. "Artie," like most astronauts, cared about the education of Yesterday's youth, and more specifically he cared that we learned our numbers 1-10. Each day, we had an exciting new mission from Artie. Write the number 3! And write it again!

Similarly, grading in kindergarten is not that difficult. Most of the time our assignments were returned to us with a smiley face. Good job, says the Witch. Or occasionally you got a check mark. That'll do, she snivels. I almost always got smiley faces. A check mark would have sent me into convulsions.

One day, I was sitting next to Chris when our assignments were returned. Lots of smiley faces and check marks around the room, no surprises there. I glanced over at my buddy's paper. Right there, on the top of sweet little Chris' mission from Artie to write Q, was a big, fat, red "F."

And Chris was crying.

There were no letter grades in kindergarten. Even I knew that! Our report cards were a series of pluses and minuses. Just a sad face on a assignment would have crushed our little souls and were therefore given out sparingly.

Yet horrible Ms. Clark, with her apparent vendetta against big-eared, scrawny, already-behind-and-its-only-kindergarten kids, had taken it upon herself to administer the first blow to Chris' already tiny self-confidence.

I hated her for it, and it's still the most vivid memory I have from that year of my life.

It continued to be rough for Chris from there on out. His disability and difficult home life didn't bode well for him through adolescence. He was picked on enough that he finally managed to make himself disappear. Though we had a very small class of 82 students, I barely remember noticing Chris in high school.

He graduated and got married and now has an adorable baby named Ireland. He's done okay for himself and certainly seems happy enough when I see him in passing every few months, but I have to wonder what would have become of Chris if he hadn't been told, as a five-year-old boy, that he was already a failure.

Decisions, decisions

I am facing a very difficult decision. I can't exactly discuss it in such a public forum (I'm kidding myself. No one reads this thing), but I hate to take the chance and have this particular decision that I'm trying to make made for me.

It's a tough enough decision that I know I will probably face some serious moments of regret after I make it, and I will definitely face some serious public disapproval. So that being said, I need some advice and hopefully you can wade through the vagueness that I'm about to embark on, and give me some help. Please.

Let's say I have this car. It's a nice car and people are always telling me how lucky I am to have such a good car. And it is reliable and safe and provides me with the wonderful benefits that go along with having a nice car.

But, since the first day I had this car, I felt discontented with it. I felt that maybe God was calling me to get rid of it. I hadn't really wanted such a fancy car in the the first place but getting it just fell into place. Now, though, I feel that every time I drive that car I lose all feelings of happiness. My brain begins to numb and my will to live wanes. It's a terrible feeling, but it goes away as soon as get out of the car.

So, now I feel that perhaps I should get rid of the car, but I do not plan on getting another car in its place. I would instead do other things I enjoyed doing that I could never do when I was saddled to that awful car. Like umm...(I don't know to fit this in my allegory so I'll just say it)volunteer.

My husband's car is good enough that we would be okay without mine. Some days it might be difficult (or more difficult than it has been) but other days I just sense how marvelous it would be to be car-free.

I realize this allegory is very one-sided, obviously I want people to tell me to ditch the car and do what I think God might be telling me to do. So I'll throw this out there: If I ditch the car now, I lose many marvelous benefits that it entails...like air conditioning. And that air-conditioning my come in very, very handy down the road.

So I don't think you should ask God to give you signs, but in this case I did. I asked God for a specific thing to happen so I would know that yes, I'm hearing him right. He wants me to ditch the car and do something a bit more risky. Anyhow, He obviously didn't like my choice of sign and didn't dignify it with an answer.

So now I turn to my two readers. If you made it through that ridiculous allegory, please tell me what you think. Otherwise I am never posting again. Then you'll be sorry! Ha!

La mujer es muy estupida.

I'm taking a Spanish Class.

I've always wanted to learn a second language, and I have absolutely nothing going on in my life right now, so I determined this would be as good a time as any to start. I found a Beginner's Conversational Spanish class that was starting soon, and I weaseled my employer into paying for it for me. Perfecto!

I've been taking the class about eight weeks now. I know several useful phrases (Cual is su direcion?), about 20 verbs that will eventually come in handy, and several not so useful phrases about babies crying and men eating apples.

The point of all this, from my employer's perspective, is to have someone in the office who can actually communicate with our ever-expanding Hispanic customer base.

The point of all this, from my perspective, is to know a real-life secret code. Excellente!

So we have a new girl at work. She's answering and transferring all the phone calls that come into the office. She has a particularly perky voice, but hasn't quite got the hang of in-office call-transfer etiquette.

For example, when transferring a fairly unusual type of call to a person who doesn't usually receive unusual-type calls, 'tis customary to warn the intended recipient that said call is coming.

Case in point: I received a (surprise!) transferred call a few mornings ago with a Spanish-speaking customer on the other end. He rattled off a very fast very-espanol-filled explanation of his situation, during which I deduced that he had a question regarding something involving the word "the" several times.

After the initial panic (apparently New Girl didn't know that I was only 2 months in to speaking my new language), I girded up my Spanish prowess and started in slowly.

Hola, Senor.

Pause.

Esotoy aprendiendo espanol. (I am learning Spanish.)

Therefore.

Habla despacio, por favor. (Please, I beg of you, slow it the frick down.)

Apparently, he understood because he started in again even faster than before.

After another looong explanation that sounded so convoluted I doubt I would have even been able to understand it in English, I answered in slow, broken Spanish, "Would you like to pay your bill?"

Pause.

I tried to salvage my dignity. Lo siento, mi espanol es muy mal.

I'm dually talented because meanwhile I was thinking, "Curse you, New Girl! A plague on both your houses!"

I racked my brain for something, anything that could make this slow and painful death come a little faster.

Alas! I remembered that we use can our customer's phone numbers to access their accounts and, sure enough, I know how to ask what someone's telephone number is in Spanish. Suddenly I felt good. My confidence was restored.

With fresh spanish gusto I delievered the deadly blow. Cuando es su numero del telefono?

Loose translation: When is your telephone number?

Score one for Team Idiot.

Surpisingly, the man did not laugh. Instead, he gave me his phone number and then asked, quite politly and in quite in my native tongue, "Would it be better if we spoke in English?"