My 6th grade was definitely a turning point in my life. I was 12 yrs old, we had just had a stellar year in Montreal with the Olympics and Nadia Comaneci and the most expensive stadium ever built, well, it was technically finished 11 years later, but I digress… My 6th year was a turning point because that is when I knew for sure I liked boys over girls.

I was very excited about returning to school that year, it was going to be my last year in grade school but most importantly, there was this one male teacher… and I wanted to be in his class so badly. Even if I didn’t really know what gay meant then, I knew he was like me… he hung out with girls and he had long hair and he wore clothes other teachers didn’t wear… and let’s just admit it, he was a tad effeminate.

Like me.

The only differences were that he was much older and he drove a yellow corvette. Little differences really. I’m sure at the time I wanted a yellow corvette too.

I wasn’t lucky enough to be in his class that year, but I did get a male teacher anyway. I didn’t get vibes from him at all, and he was married with children and he drove a car with rust on it… Not gay.

I don’t really know why I wanted to annoy this teacher so much, maybe I was a bit mad not to have had the one I wanted, but I was overtly pushy with him. I remember once continuing a conversation with a classmate after he had warned me to stop. He got mad and took me out of the class and once in the corridor he pointed to the principal’s office and told me to report to him… As if… I walked a bit, he went back inside the classroom and I hid in the art supply closet until the class was done… During a school dance, while I was sitting on the side of the gym, he told me to go ask a girl to dance, I said I wasn’t interested, he then chose one for me and embarrassed us until we finally danced together… Of course, the slow dance was with her arms extended and hands on my shoulders with room for 2 other kids to dance in between us… but that seemed to calm him down. He used to very often ask me questions in front of the class to maybe try to catch me off guard and possibly make a fool of me in front of the other students, but I did my homeworks, I knew my maths, it never really worked. Yep, I was a smartass way back then too.

Perhaps the most annoying thing I ever did in grade 6 was the day after he told me to sit my “skinny” ass down, I brought this:

redcorduroycushion

My big red corduroy cushion.

Sure some kids made fun of me on the first few days, and the teacher probably tought it was a phase, but oh no… every afternoon, at the end of classes when putting our chairs on top of our desk so the floors could be cleaned, he was reminded as I proudly put my big red corduroy cushion on top of the chair. I brought that cushion home on the last day of class that year. I passed with glowing grades that year.

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