More on second grade

My best friend was Michelle Skowronek. She was very blond and very sweet, and looked like an angel when we made our Holy Communion that year. Her father worked for Pratt & Whitney and her mother did not work. Nobody's mother worked, but Mrs. Skowronek distinguished herself because she refused to answer the phone between the hours of 1 and 2, while Days of our Lives was on.

Anyway, three possible reasons why Michelle stopped being my best friend in third grade, and specifically stopped inviting me to swim in her inground pool -- with slide!! One, I lived too far away to walk. (Nice reason because it has nothing to do with ME). Two, when we were in second grade, my brother was in kindergarten, and that was the year he ate nothing but peeled hot dogs and sliced cucumbers, and still threw up every night at the dinner table. Maybe she thought I was gross when I said, "Save the cucumbers!" Or three, another time when she was over and my chemistry set experiment didn't work right, maybe she thought I was immature when I hid under the kitchen table and refused to come out. That was such first-grade behavior!! (God. No wonder she preferred Jennifer Marchese, who played with makeup and I'm sure never hid under the table because her eyeshadow looked bad.)

Anyway, in case you're interested, Michelle works for the post office now, and is married into the Pagano family around the corner from my parents. Mr. Pagano is from Italy and he used to walk around the block with a blue parakeet on his shoulder and poop stains on his white t-shirt. They had one son, Billy, who they used to yell at all the time, and one day, when he was trying to escape from the house, he jumped out of his second-story bedroom window and broke his legs.