Middle School Madness - is this a Darla story?

OK, so two things you don’t want to happen to you in middle school.

1.  Your mom coming around much.
2.  Your mom embarrassing you.

I did both today.

And I laughed and I laughed and I laughed.

Today was the day to proof the 8th grade yearbook ads at the middle school.  I went up to the school office, signed in and went to the 2nd floor yearbook room.  Just as I finished proofing our ad, the bell rang and for a split second I got kind of nervous … you know … who was I going to see in the hall, etc.  I was wishing I hadn’t worn my jogging clothes but I had to squeeze in a run - the weather was perfect and afterwards there was no time to shower or change.

But I remembered that I am 42 years old and it no longer matters what people think of me and so I waded out into the hallways of middle school.

I saw Caroline right away … she’s kind of hard to miss … she is SO tall.  She was putting her books in her locker and I thought it would be fun to just kind of “surprise” her.

So I went and stood right next to her.  She accidentally hit my arm as she was putting her book in her locker and said … “excuse me”.  About the time she got to the word “me” she looked up and saw it was … well, me.

And her look seemed to say: ohmygoodnessIcan’tbelievemymomis
inthehallwayofmyschool  or something like that.

I thought it was hilarious.  I didn’t want to really embarrass her though so I just told her what I was doing there and went on about my way.

As I looked back and waved I saw she and her friends looking at me and kind of laughing.  I figured they were giving her a hard time about her mom showing up at school.   Thought it was kind of cute.

Next up … the post office where I asked how much a stamp is these days.  I seriously said … 27 cents?  Pretty much all the postal people laughed and said … NOT IN ABOUT 20 years and told me they are now 44 cents.  Inflation will get ya everytime!  And where have I been?

Then I went to the elementary school to pick up the younger three.  I stood right out in the middle of the school yard talking to moms when one (good and honest) friend came up and said … “Darla … did you know your shirt was on inside out?”

Of course I died out laughing but it didn’t really bother me … I mean how bad could it be?  I thought just a little tag was kind of under my hair.

Until I looked.  It was right on the side and it was HUGE and white.  HUGE.  How could I not have noticed on a run, in the post office, in the middle school?!?  Reminded me of the day I went to Caroline’s volleyball game with the sticker that had the size of my jeans still attached to the back of my pants.

And when I got in the car I realized I HAD WALKED DOWN THE MIDDLE OF THE CROWDED MIDDLE SCHOOL HALL in front of all of Caroline’s friends with my shirt on inside out.  And not like a “you don’t really notice” inside out/but a really bad inside out.

It was like a middle schoolers worst nightmare.  Everyone was laughing at me and I had no idea why.

I thought Caroline would be mad when she got home … you know, the whole … “why did you do that?” speech.

But instead (thankfully) when I asked her if she noticed, she said … “oh yeah, but I didn’t want to tell you because then I’d have to talk to you.”

And if that doesn’t just about sum up middle school, I don’t know what does.

I think I might even be getting a pimple now.