naughty or nice

I was shopping at Wal-mart today, picking up a couple of groceries, odds and ends, and an oil change. As I was finishing things up, bringing them to a close, I found myself in the auto department. While waiting in line to pay my dues I noticed another customer. She looked familiar to me.

This customer had a red and white checkered bob with a grey skater cap. She was dressed in a light grunge. As I inconspicuously eyed her I decided I must have known her from Cosmetology. Her hair gave that much away.

My mind was filled with all of these memories. Catty girls, how could they have been raised in the same world as myself. Many of these girls had problems with drugs, alcohol, and chastity. They would come to school after the weekends bragging of parties, which guys they had slept with, and what girls they had beat up. They were like a whole other breed to me. They were foreign, a cast I had only thought existed in the movies.

Many of these girls had sent around a petition trying to get me kicked out of school. It intrigued me on why they would go through such pains for someone who had merely tried to treat them as human beings, with higher expectations for them as individuals than what they had for themselves, or from others at that matter. They would steel from me, they butchered my hair, and did all they could to try and make me leave.

During this era of my life one of the only things that kept me hanging on was the fact that the school was owned by some Christians. Twice a week they would hold a Bible study for those of us who needed strength in the middle of the week. Of the 120 pupils that attended this school, there were only 3-5 that attended Bible Study at any time. Girls sneered at us as we left the room in the mornings. You can imagine what their creative minds would conjure throughout the day in our behalves.

These memories were pouring into my mind as I tried to remember where she would have fit in all of these thoughts. My mind was racing. I didn't have a desire to be rude nor false towards her. As we spoke we decided we weren't in the same group, she was in one that had begun a year before my own group. To my relief it has came to my mind since our parting that she was one of the girls from Bible Study. I wish I had been warmer to her today, just so she would know I appreciated her back then.