This is why I said boob: Remember yourself challenge, Day 1.

It's strange to look back and see what we see. It's strange, seems almost stupid at times, the things that we attach to, that stay with us. Meaningless things that can even haunt us, though we be a different person now than we were then.

I remember first or second grade, I think. A single incident during physical education, playing with other kids. I was only.... slightly unpopular at this point? At any rate, I was not a very physically adept child, but I had an idea. If I jumped through the bars, grabbed on on my way through, and swung out in this certain way, that would be awesome. Then everyone would be impressed, surely! So I yelled and finally got everyone's attention, assuring them that what was about to commence was going to be Awesome.

It didn't work. I neglected to fully appreciate how physically inept I was when planning this, and it failed, likely pathetically since no one even laughed.

Similarly, I remember trying to hit on a girl in and around the same time... mebbe second or third grade, at the lunchroom table. She was a smart girl, pretty, and thus was quite interesting to me (and would continue to be for many years, despite me obviously having not a chance in hell due to her lack of good taste).

Being intelligent as well, I tried to win her attention from Random Jock B with my clever use of words (a sure sign that I had no idea how the world really worked back then). I remember sitting nearby and talking at their conversation, saying a few things here and there. Then I remember using the word boob.

boob

noun

1.

a stupid person; fool; dunce.

2.

British . a blunder; mistake.

verb (used without object)

3.

British . to blunder.

I read a lot of books.

But as we know, living in our modern society, it also has another meaning.

boob

²  

noun Slang: Sometimes Vulgar .

a female breast.

And, of course, no one but I knew the first three meanings, and so it was that I was drowned in a sea of "hahaha you said boob" comments.

These instances would come back to me for years and years. Haunting me even. I'd remember them in flashes of embarrassment all through my school years. Even as I came to understand myself better, even as I came to be more mature, more understanding of society, it would still fly back to me out of nowhere.

Telling myself, convincing myself, and even eventually understanding and believing that:

1) it didn't matter what those people thought

2) no one but I likely remembered it

3) I don't even know if those people are still alive; much less am I likely to see them ever again

4) they were the ones that didn't know what in the damn I meant

5) we were all kids

Didn't actually ever stop it from coming back to me. It was obviously one of the first things that came to me for this challenge.

And I don't know why.