A Sophisticated Answer

A friend of mine is doing this 31 questions in March blogging writing challenge (https://marquessamatthews.com/2021/02/10/want-to-join-me-for-a-writing-challenge-alexandrafranzen/). I don't know if I'll manage to do the whole month. But I'm taking a crack at today.

March 1 – What’s the best compliment you’ve ever received?

I've gotten a few over the years. But this one comes with a decent story.

In tenth grade, I had one of the humanity classes. There was an assignment one day. Everyone had an envelope to write their name on, and a stack of slips of paper. You passed the envelope to the next person. On the slip of paper, you wrote one nice word to describe whoever's envelope you had. Then pass along again until everyone in the class had put a slip in each envelope. Then we opened them and read them aloud.

My class partner, Mike, wrote "SOPHISTICATED" on my slip. (Yeah, I recognized the handwriting of my class partner.) No one had ever said that about me before. I really liked it. Maybe because he said it? I don't know. But it made me really happy, it made me feel good about myself to feel like I portrayed sophistication. 

To make this story more interesting, let me share my second favorite, the one that made everyone giggle. 

"COOL LIGHT-UP SHOES."

That was from Dave (RIP). I read it, people laughed and were like "what?" And Dave was all, "That one time in middle school, she had a pair of sneakers that lit up. I saw them in the cafeteria. They were freaking awesome! Do you still have those? You should wear them."

Three points here.

1- Dave was being genuine. He mentioned this to me more than once after this day. Dave was a bit of a clown, but he was also a good guy who stood up for people and was actually really nice. I don't know, maybe in another universe, we would have been friends or more. As it was, we were just two people in a smallish school who happened to have a handful of classes together.

2- Yes, I had a pair of L.A. Gear hightop sneakers. When you pressed the tongue it lit up for a few seconds. This and the Air Jordon pump was the height of sneaker technology in the early 90s and I'm sorry if you aren't cool enough to know that. Not everyone appreciated that my shoes did this. It resulted in some discussion as to if I should be allowed to wear something that could be a distraction. BECAUSE MY CLASSMATES WERE A BUNCH OF CATS WHO HAVE TO CHASE THE RED DOT. 🙄 Whatever. My mom got me a pair of Guess! sneakers that had artsy flowers on them, which I both loved and hated, depending on the day. They were not as supportive as my L.A. Gear ones, and thus my ankles turned more often. Such is life.

3- Dave was a senior. I was in tenth grade. I was the only tenth-grader in this class. In my high school, the only classes that were divided by your grade were English and History. The rest were all mixed based on what classes you were taking and how the schedule fell. Upon realizing I was the only tenth grader, I was called to the guidance office and given the chance to take a study hall instead and repeat the humanity class next year. Umm, no thanks. The guidance counselor worried that I would get bullied, that they'd be mean to me. REALLY? No. I was like the new kid sister. They LOVED me. Several of them stood up for me, even against teachers. They were super nice! Unlike people in my grade, who were mostly annoying at any given time. Plus, half of them were in a bunch of my other classes that year. What's one more class? It was fine. Better than fine. And yeah, I'm still friends with some of them on Facebook. (Which is how I know that Dave died. His sister told me.)