The Stinkbug: 1992

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This was likely my worst day at Ellis Elementary.  It started with a smell and ended with panicky, bitter tears.  

I can only remember the experience, but this is how I picture my morning going that fateful day.  I roll out of bed to a smell of freshly baked blueberry muffins.  I cut the first muffin down the middle with a freshly buttered knife and wait for the butter to melt.  I dip it in a shallow glass of milk and place its soggy beauty in my little gapped tooth mouth.  This process is repeated 4 to 5 times.  I take a nice bubble bath and think about how cool it will be when I can one day shave.  I get dressed in some Springy shorts to accompany my Adidas t-shirt.  Mom combs my hair, making sure that my forehead wave is looking sweet.  I reluctantly brush my teeth and splash on a bit of dad’s aftershave for the ladies.  I put on my shoes, give mom a kiss, grab my backpack, and head out to the bus stop 2 houses down.  I board the bus, it leaves, and I run to the back and wave at mom as I pass the house, keeping my hand out the window until the house is out of site.  The bus pulls into the school parking lot, and I make my way to Mrs. Davis’s, who I am secretly scared of, second grade class.

Queue the memory.  

Early that morning I started to smell the very familiar stinkbug smell.  I supposed that one of my classmates had stepped on one on their way into class or that one had died in the room.  Everyone else smelled it too.  Throughout the day I attended various classes and visited many places in the school outside of the classroom (bathroom, P.E., computer lab, library, etc.) but the smell followed me wherever I went.  People started to blame me for the smell, but I vehemently denied that I was the cause.  Nevertheless, the smell lingered throughout the day, never diminishing and ever-present.

I left school as a literal outcast and arrived home defeated and upset.  As I took off my right shoe I was blasted with a warm stinkbug stink.  Searching for the root of this evil, I found that a large stinkbug was crushed into the front of my kicks.  I feverishly took off my sock and found that the end of my big toe was dyed red from the stink bug.  I supposed that I was poisoned and started to cry.  I then ran into the kitchen, called my mom at work, and told her of my extreme misfortune and impending death by stinkbug poisoning.  She sympathetically told me that I would be ok and to wash my foot.  It took a few days for the coloring to wear off, but much longer to rid myself of the shame that I had incurred that day.