Miss H, junior pervert

My kindergarten teacher told us to draw a picture of our family, with crayon on manilla paper. I drew my family naked. My mother with her big boobs. My sister was a short little stick figure. My dad with beard, glasses, and an arc of pee from his penis. One of my classmates was egging me on, a blonde girl from a family that I would later think of as poor, white-trashy and frighteningly subversive. I thought I was daring and hilarious. I wondered if I would get in trouble when the teacher saw my drawing, but I wasn’t really scared.

We giggled maniacally while working on our drawings. I can’t remember whether my classmate’s family wore their clothes. I’m pretty sure that I alone was wearing clothes in my family portrait. It was the mid-seventies and I can remember something like a red turtleneck and stockings under a plaid jumper, mary jane shoes.

We turned the pictures in, and the next day the teacher gave them back with gold stars. Everyone had a gold star. She had written something like “nice job” on mine. She couldn’t tell that my family was naked. She apparently didn’t notice that my dad was peeing. Or maybe she did know and did notice and she laughed to herself or thought that I was a budding little perv. It’s quite possible she couldn’t tell because we were kindergartners drawing stick figures. But my kindergartner’s eye could clearly see the clothes in my classmates’ drawings and the lack of clothing in mine. I was disappointed that the teacher didn’t pick up on that.

When I got older, I was afraid of the blonde girl and didn’t talk to her anymore. When I got to grade school I never would have had the nerve to draw my family naked.

I don’t know what this says about my screwed-up psyche, but it isn’t a bad memory at all.