Older mean kids

Back when I was in 3^rd grade, it was a regular occurrence for the 8^th graders to come to our classroom and help us with our reading skills.  I was kinda scared of the older boys and was usually lucky enough to get paired up with a nice girl who looked like Marcia Brady.  One time, though, I got stuck with a mean kid named Tom.

It was pretty obvious that Tom was not gonna even try to help me with my reading.  Instead, he spent the whole time asking me which girls I liked.  That was bad enough, but it got worse when he asked me if I knew what a dick was.  I told him I knew what it was, but I wasn’t allowed to call it that.  He asked what I called it instead, and I told him that my mom said to call it my “cow”.  I don’t know why, but he thought that was pretty funny.  I wanted him to change the conversation, but then he asked me what my cow looked like.  The first thing I could think to tell him was that it looked like a hot dog.

When he asked me what a girl’s thing looked like, I blurted out the first thing to come to mind, hoping to end the conversation.  “A hamburger”, I said.  Tom busted out laughing, told his mean friends, and got them laughing too.  Mercifully, the class ended and they were all sent back to the 7^th/8^th grade classroom.  I was hoping this was all over, but I couldn’t get that lucky.

A few days later, I was riding bikes with one of my older brothers, down by the railroad tracks.  Sure enough, Tom and his mean friends pulled up on their bikes.  Tom yelled “Hey Dave, tell us about hotdogs and hamburgers!”  I acted like I didn’t know what he was talking about.  He said “Wasn’t that you that was telling me about hotdogs and hamburgers the other day at school?”  I said no and then started crying.  I told my brother that I wanted to go home, so we raced down the hill from the railroad tracks and went home.

When we got home, I asked my brother to please not tell mom about what happened.  He just kinda shrugged and said “Let’s go see if Gilligan is on.”