Sticker fraud

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There are limited occasions in a person’s life that can be wholly defined by a single adjective.  However, when I think back to my kindergarten days, one word comes to mind: competitive. My drive to win may have been purely born of childhood greed. Or maybe it was a manifestation of something more complex and personal, either an innate or developing desire for recognition and approval. Perhaps from my infant perspective, life was simple enough to be viewed solely in terms of Darwinian survival. Whatever the case, my kindergarten classroom appears to have offered me an early opportunity to discover if I was going to win at the game of life.

 

I was only four and already reading when I began the school year.  I had set my sights on chapter books and begun composing some songs and short stories, albeit limited to the themes of dolphins and other sea creatures. As an evolving Saggitarian, I also loved to perform and center myself in the attention of others, and this very trait evokes the first semi-disturbing kindergarten memory I can recall. In the midst of our study of Grimm’s Fairy Tales, a review for me of course, our teacher explained that we would be staging a performance of Hansel and Gretel.  I was not, to my dismay, cast as the female lead. It was a devastating blow, in light of my demonstrated dramatic talents, but I was to learn that this was only the first of several disappointments.

 

A few months later, our class was unleashed in the play yard to hunt for a golden egg. How can I possibly express my heartbreak when the search did not conclude with the discovery of the coveted ovum by yours truly? I still remember the name of the girl who was the lucky winner, but for the purposes of the protecting her, and what remains of my dignity, I will refrain from revealing her identity. Whining was far from an effective strategy, so I had to use my four year old words to identify how I was feeling.  I was mad, I was sad, and I was perplexed. Could this really keep happening, despite the fact that I clearly wanted to win more than any of the other kids in the class? My childhood reality check was far from over.

 

Throughout the year our teacher had awarded us with stickers for good behavior and classroom accomplishments. These stickers were then affixed in individual pink paper sticker books, shaped like bears, that we all kept on a special shelf in the classroom. At the end of the year, the stickers were to be tallied and the student with the most stickers would be awarded a prize. Everyone else simply got to take the sticker book home, small consolation as far as I could see. I not only wanted to win, I believed it was my divine right.  After all, I hadn’t gotten to be Gretel and I hadn’t found the golden egg—surely there had to be some justice. I was still under the impression that life was indeed fair. I kept vigil over the paper bear book, counting the stickers daily.

 

Once, perhaps in an unexplained fit of competitive fury near the end of the school year, I may have even ripped a few of the stickers in half before sticking them in the book, to make each count for two. Looking back, I realize this was not a good thing. I was beginning to resemble a mini-Enron executive, developing a system of sticker accounting that I hoped would go unnoticed by the kindergarten bureaucracy. Like my grown-up counterparts, in my mind, it wasn’t cheating; I was just being creative with my resources. However, my prospects for developing into a well-settled first grader were looking grim.

 

June arrived and sticker distribution slowed to a halt until the day the teacher announced the winner. In the perfect denouement to a year of harsh, face-to-face encounters with reality, I did not win. Ironically, I don’t even remember what the prize was. But I do remember acknowledging on some level that I didn’t deserve it. I hadn’t been the best student, despite my early literacy, and though I imagine this may come as a shock, my behavior had been less than exemplary. I learned that some feelings have a way of sitting at the bottom of your stomach and just sort of gnawing away at you, and that when that happens, it means you probably did something wrong.  Furthermore, now that I was taking my sticker book home with me, the ripped stickers weren’t worth a whole lot.

 

I can’t say that at five years old, I conceded that I had learned my lesson and gave up my competitive ways. The following year I waited with bated breath to receive the prestigious gumball award, and I don’t even like gum. Throughout my school years I aimed to win and excel at everything I did, from drama to sports to academics. However, I do believe that these early experiences served as a kind of cautionary tale for the rest of my life, equipping me with the understanding that I don’t hold the world in the palm of my hand, and things won’t always go my way.  And perhaps what’s more, when I try to make them go my way, either by cheating or agonizing over the situation, the best reward I can expect is an ulcer.

 

As a result, while I remain intensely driven to succeed, the shape of my ambition has transformed, enabling me to channel my energy toward competition with myself. In the years that followed these first encounters with the heartbreak of losing, I realized that if I set my own standards and aspired to meet them, then I couldn’t be disappointed in my heart. It’s a great thing to remember, at five and at twenty-five. Some things fall into the hands of others and just as often, the hands of fate, but I am ultimately responsible for my actions and accomplishments and it’s difficult to feel too bad about a job well done, whatever the outcome. After all, there’s more to life than stickers.

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