Cul de Sac by Richard Thompson for September 01, 2015

Poor, poor Petey.

As the adverts say, Petey, just do it! The anticipation is ever so much worse than than the momentary reality. This too shall pass.Now, both of you, get in there!

My mum, always one to boost the old ego, would ask me, at moments such as this, what made me think I was special enough for people to be interested in how I looked.

I’d try to slip in unobtrusively – and then trip over a chair.

“We wouldn’t worry so much about what people thought of us if we knew how seldom they do.”

My school was small enough that homeroom had the same people year after year, right through high school. Only the teacher was different. Once in junior high, most of the classmates for individual courses repeated as well. Occasionally there was someone new, usually a transplant from another state.

I know just how he feels, I went to several new schools, and I was a very shy child, I sat in my car on the first day of college, couldn’t get myself in the door.

They (whoever “they” were) did an experiment with a young woman. They told her they were going to paint a large scar running down her cheek, then send her out into the world to see how people reacted. They went through all these steps where they pretended to draw a scar on her. When the woman returned they asked her how it went. She said she felt everyone was staring at her cheek. There wasn’t even anything there. It was all in her mind.

Me too Petey, me too.