It was the sixth grade. A lot of things were happening to me, or waiting to happen. End of the year projects, me catching Pneumonia and, in one extreme case, a janitor being arrested for drug possession. But one event stuck out in my mind the most. Namely, having a month long stint as morning announcer, with two “cohosts” named Michael and Rebecca. Basically, if we didn’t yell at each other, that would be surprising. I was in Ms.Pantaleo’s sixth grade class, and it was our class’ turn to pick three announcers for that month via lottery. I ended up winning, along with Michael and Rebecca. Michael had an indistinguishable lisp, and, I swear, I think he spat on me once. We also worked together as a mock band, then I caught Pneumonia and had to stay at my Mom’s house in Massapequa for the week I had to perform. We ended up getting a C-. Rebecca was the type of girl I didn’t really notice, until now. A day before we were to start presenting, we went down to the principal’s room where the PA system was. It was the other class’s announcer’s final day, and they taught us all the ropes. I was optimistic; I think the others were too. Then it all came crashing like the Hindenburg.

Our first day went pretty well, I made a joke that said, “Send down the lunch cards or else we’ll starve!” First day, and I almost get canned. Off to a great start. The other guys told us about the Birthday Pencil System, as I like to call it. Basically, if it’s your birthday, you get a crappy pencil with a fragile, chintzy eraser. Oh, and you couldn’t reject it, either. Then it went all downhill from there. We started arguing pretty much every day. I remember one argument was so bad, Michael just left us. Just, left us. When Rebecca & I got back to class, Michael and Rebecca sat at the same table in class. He managed to convince the whole table that Rebecca treated him like crap. They wouldn’t listen to her side of the story at all. I remember one argument was so vicious that we were called into the school psychologist and now all three of us were on the verge of being canned. In 6th and 7th Grade, I knew the doctor so well I might as well have been invited to her baby shower. Oh, and remember the Birthday Pencil System? Well, all three of us had an argument that made us miss Social Studies, and was so bad a teacher had to intervene. I have to stop typing over how hard I was laughing over how stupid this was. To go from legitimate issues like how long a person goes on for, to who delivers pencils, we ran the gamut. On announcements, we seemed bright and chipper, but, after the announcements stopped, we were pretty much at each other’s necks. Now I had to deal with the freaking Breakfast Club 2.0 after I accidentally got them in trouble for having their cellphones out in class every lunch, to getting barked at by a kid with a speech impediment. My life was grand.

On the final day, I was running late. When I finally get there before announcements, Michael replaced me with my good friend, Shane. It’s before announcements start, and Michael was such a jerk that he didn’t let me go on at all. I wanted to punch him in the face for making such a stubborn, idiotic, vain decision. When it was time to go back, we had our final argument in front of the kids who were replacing us. I hope they didn’t argue as much as we did. We went about three weeks not talking to each other at all. I made up with Rebecca when she told me the idea that we could both win Jogger’s Club for the 6th grade division. Jogger’s Club was this recess program that I participated in since it was introduced to me in the 5th Grade. We both won for the 6th Grade. I made up with Rebecca, but neither of us have even talked to Michael ever since we were morning announcers.