Original

In fifth grade we were required to make our own valentine's day box
and I was so stoked, as was my mother. We brainstormed for days and
finally came to the conclusion that since I loved basketball (yes,
little ole me LOVED basketball when I was young) we would make a
box where you flung the valentine across the box into a hoop. It was so
cool! Red and pink with ribbon and lace and the inside was a
basketball court. Everyone had a blast trying to fling their card into
the hoop which probably didn't work all that well, however it was
still neat for a bunch of 11 year olds. At the end of the day we had an award
ceremony with all sorts of different awards for the construction of
our boxes. I was never really a competitive kid so I wasn't really
expecting anything but sometimes its nice to be acknowledged. 


They get to the "originality award" and say my name with great
enthusiasm! I walked to the front of the room and accepted my award
quite possibly with a frown on my face. When I got home and was crabby
as all hell my mother asked what was up. I began to tell her about all
the cool awards that people won and I finally got to my "originality
award" and gave her my whole schpeal about how unhappy I was. Here I am, 
an eleven year old girl thinking that "originality" meant normal,
boring like "original potato chips". I seriously could not picture
anything but the yellow lays potato chips being original flavor and them not
tasting as good as the cheddar or sour cream and onion ones. So my
mother of course laughs at me, well not at me but tells me I am
completely wrong and that my award meant my box was super awesome
cool and had never been thought of before as in it is the "original"
creation. What What? Man did I shine after that but it sure did take a
bit of convincing on my mother's side.


Merriweather