Gauche Darn

Mechanical Pencils

David. Even my name is boring. David. There isn't even the slightest ring to it. Sometimes I like to pretend as if I were someone special with a name other than David. Often I like to think I could be someone like Alan Roberts. I would be popular, with blonde hair I could spike whenever I wanted to. I would always wear the best clothes and be able to function at a sport. I would play football, no, I would be the captain of the football team. Everyone would adore me, including Christina Currens.

Christina Currens was the woman...girl... that I know deep in my heart will marry me one day. Sure, I didn't know too much about love or relationships (or girls at all for that matter), but somehow I knew one day it would all work out. She was beautiful and caring and nice and lovely and beautiful and... beautiful. Plus, she volunteers at the animal shelter on Wednesday and Friday afternoons. She's an animal lover. Who could possibly not want that? I mean sure, I was allergic to everything with four legs and fur, but love finds a way.

Christina was walking at a safe distance ahead of me towards her next class. Her hair was curled today and hung loosely around her shoulders. Our school had a uniform naturally, and she was trying to hide it with a jacket. I wasn't sure how she thought she would get away with wearing a bright yellow rain jacket with our navy blue and black uniform.

That was the biggest problem at our private school. They couldn't seem to give enough detentions for being "out of uniform." There was always someone watching, even when there was no one watching. There were always teachers with ties like nooses around their necks as they were pulled around by Mr. Ashram.

Mr. Ashram was our dictator of a principal. He naturally had a mustache identical to Hitler's and an attitude to match. He was constantly trying to pass stupid rules the had nothing to do with learning. The latest in his daily scheming was trying to ban mechanical pencils. In his words, they were "too noisy and clicky for a learning environment."

Christina turned off into a classroom leaving me with no choice but to go to my class.

I could hear Mrs. Raddley ranting about feminism before i even walked into the room. It seemed to be the subject she continually reverted back to. Somehow she always found a way to include her opinion female equality into our Algebra II lesson because feminism is an important aspect of graphing polynomials.

I sat down as quietly as possible in the loneliest seat in the room. I reached in my bag and pulled out my spiral notebook and a mechanical pencil.