Story Time with Balls

The sweet taste of having wonderful friends is what makes my life of singletude completely bearable. My friend, we will call her Balls (at least that's what she's in my phone under) is an effervescent lady who delights me with her childhood stories. Like me, she has lived through some horrifically embarrassing moments, and to be able to sit down and share them, makes for good times.

The other night, we were discussing certain items we had dropped over the years. I started by telling her about my ballet days. As a child, I was round like Garfield, perhaps a side effect of watching him on Saturday mornings. My mother had to literally hold on to my leotard, and I would jump up and down to simply get into the damn things.

I am not sure how then, during a concert while dancing around in a circle to some bullshit peter pan music, my tutu fell down. I almost stepped out of the damn thing, but made a fast pull up and kept on going. Perhaps my round middle pushed the item of clothing in a downward motion, otherwise I am not sure how this occurred.

Balls fired back by telling me of a time when she danced as well. Grade eight brought her to the stage, and in her time to shine she had a major shoe malfunction. I've had these as well, I am sure you have too. It's when the tip of your shoe gets caught in something, a wood panel, the sidewalk, your other foot, causing you to do a silly skip forward.

When holding on to something, it occasionally causes you to drop that item. In the middle of a chorus of students waving their tambourines in the air, she did a trip, slip and drop. The tambourine went down, but her spirits did not. We are kindreds you see, as I pulled up my tutu and went on, she simply waved her hands along side her stage mates, in an attempt to either act like nothing happened, or to at least value that the show must go on.

The conversation rolled from there, and brought me to an unfortunate even in the hallway when I was in grade eight. When you are female, it is terribly embarrassing to admit to anyone that you have your period. It's something you try and pretend does not exist in any capacity.

It was a winter day and I was at my locker happy to be at the end of the school day. I grabbed my winter jacket out of my locker and threw it on over my head (recall the style in the 90s included pull over short jackets riddled with florescent shapes). I went on with my routine of collecting all my items while trying not to let all the garbage in my locker fall out, when a very shy classmate turned to me.

His face was beat red and he said, "um, I think you dropped something."

I looked down and in horror saw it sitting there in the hallway of the Public School I attended. It was a pink kotex pad, and it lay there laughing at me. I did what any 13 year old would do in a situation like this, I said immediately, "that's not mine."

He looked away asking nothing more, but he knew. He saw it fly out of my front pocket and land on the ground. To make matters worse, the janitor came by with his big broom, and pushed that pad all the way down the hall. I left school in a hurry that day.

Balls came back at me, with what is now my favourite of her stories. She recalled a moment in the hallway at school, high school. It was grade 11 and she was also prepping for the end of the school day. High school hallways are scary as fuck, even walking through them as an adult I can still feel a tingle of insecurity. Every move you make in that hallway is calculated as a teenager, most of us just trying to blend in.

Balls was collecting her items, and was jolted by a loud smashing sound as a juice bottle crashed onto the hard cold floor next to her. Being concerned she reacted by calling out to the other students down the hall, "Somebody dropped their juice!"

She then turned to look at the damaged beverage on the ground and realized, it was her juice. She did it, she is that somebody. And she just yelled down the hall to alert everyone.

Adding to her original question she informed her classmates that it was indeed hers, and to never mind. I pictured this story from her angle, and after catching my breath from laughter, I pictured it to anyone else standing in that hallway looking at her.

What you would see, is a young girl drop her juice (I am assuming fruitopia) and yell out asking who done it. She done it. Then the look on her face once realizing, that indeed, she dropped the juice. I think that's a good lesson on life, perhaps if I could relive my pad incident, I would own up to that shit the way she did.

Story time with Balls is always a fun affair, as long as no one drops their juice.