Tuesday, June 27, 2006
I would've made an awesome Mad Max movie character
On my way to work, as I leave my neighborhood, I often see this little girl walking to school. I guess we both leave around the same time. She’s super skinny, wears glasses, is always alone, and always walks with her head down. It kinda gives the impression that she isn’t happy with who she is.
It reminded me of my childhood. I don’t think I became unhappy with who I was until about 6th grade. You know, when you start becoming more aware of social stuff. I think I walked around a lot with my head down too, but not because of the esteem issues. As long as I could remember I always walked to school looking down because I was always looking for things to salvage, like a scavenger. I was attracted to shiny objects like a packrat. I would pick up M&Ms (and eat them), pennies, scarred Hot Wheels cars, broken action figures… anything that my little mind could find a use for, I would pick it up.
Pencil fighting was huge. The boys would buy packs of cool-looking pencils with all sorts of neat patterns on them and smash them against opponents’ pencils. There were shattered pencils everywhere. I would retrieve the ends with the eraser still on them and re-sharpen them, adding them to my little collection of pencil stubs. I used them too. I was proud of them. On rare occasions I would find an entire cool pencil just laying on the ground, unsharpened and unused. I would hoard those. I think I still have a few (with erasers as hard as plastic now).
I would’ve made for an awesome character in one of the Mad Max movies. The funny little scavenger person, adorned with all sorts of necklaces made of polished soda can tabs and random teeth… always dirty because I’m always digging through trash… outfits that never match… I can totally picture it.
So now I wonder, is this little girl I keep seeing really sad, or is she just looking for things to scavenge on the ground?
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