Never mind the bollocks...

Some of my memories are more fragments than actual narratives. And every now and then, something will remind me of them.

Doubly weird, it's like I had absolutely no recollection until the memory itself was triggered.

Like when we were in elementary school and at the end of the day, we had to put our chairs up on the tables. I think this was so it was easier for the custodians to clean the classroom after school, but I don't know for sure.

And other things I remember making complete sense at the time, but when I think of it now, it's completely bizarre.

I never understood why they made paste smell like wintergreen if they didn't want kids to eat it. That said, I never actually tasted it, thanks to the admonishments of much older kids (second-graders).

"Don't eat the paste," they told me.

"Why?"

They looked around, making sure the teacher wasn't lurking about. Finally, they told me.

"It'll stick your balls together."

Even as a first-grader, it made no sense to me how the paste would get from your stomach to your, um, ballular area, but I didn't want to take a chance, because I worried that if I ate paste, and my testimonials did get stuck together, I'd go to the doctor, who would look up from his clipboard with a disapproving look because with my luck, the only way in the whole world that would happen is if I did, in fact, eat paste.

Better safe than sorry, I say.

I'm a nut that way.

Don't get testy.