Been there, done it, on to the next (mis)adventure

Originally published in the Daily Advocate Jan. 31, 2020

By Bethany J. Royer-DeLong
Pushing Ink no. 20

Let’s set the scene — circa 1983 (ish) when blinding neon, football-size shoulder pads, and
poodle perms was all the rage. The Atari was the must-have toy along with the Cabbage Patch
Doll, which everyone was getting into fistfights and drawing blood over. Something my teens
find incredulous.

It was the year Sally Ride was the first U.S. woman aboard the space shuttle, singer Karen
Carpenter died, and the last episode of M.A.S.H. aired.

It was a time when the hot movies were WarGames, Star Wars: Return of the Jedi, and Jaws 3-D.
(Yes, you should laugh at the latter, that’s the point!)

For yours truly, it was the year that my parents’ marriage first became rocky and unpredictable.
Course, the 1980s was the peak in divorce rates, so the rug was ripped out from beneath a lot of
kids’ feet.

Some families have ugly vases or rusty soup spoons as heirlooms. Mine is divorce. How about
you?

School had its moments but leaned towards the wanton forgettable. Some days stand out more
than others such as a day of show and tell in elementary, a first world problem more than
anything at nine maybe ten years old. I vividly recall items passed from student to student,
including what my memory says must have been a surprise toy from a cereal box, a trinket
composed of several small plastic pieces.

For some reason, I failed to wear my glasses that day. It could have been an easy mistake —
meaning I purposely left them at home. I was not blind without them but bent over, ski-slope
nose nearly to the desktop to look at the toy when someone told me to hurry up with a shove
between my shoulder blades.

Surprised by the shove, I gasped and thus inadvertently inhaled and began to choke on a piece of
the toy.

Now, mind you, as a highly sensitive kid with a bad case of the spotlight effect, I was certain
every single eyeball in that noisy classroom had been a witness. I was also certain the teacher
would come round, yank me up from my desk by one arm to begin the Heimlich maneuver. Not
because I was choking, oh no, I was entirely expendable, but the retrieval of the toy was
mandatory.

Of course, it was only inevitable that I would swallow the piece with the gravity of the situation
settling in the pit of my stomach, both figuratively and quite literal.
I can laugh now, recalling how I sat straight in my seat in horror only to find everyone too busy
chatting with one another to notice what happened. No teacher came round to wrestle the toy
from my innards. (I have a vivid picture in my mind of a game of Operation in the teacher’s
lounge, it only seems fitting).

A war ensued in my mind. I wanted to raise my hand to tell the teacher, coupled with a stubborn
determination to deny anything happened, should someone ask. (Missing piece? It must have
fallen to the floor!) In the end, silence won out as I scooped the remaining pieces into one hand
and promptly deposited them on the desk behind me.

I waited, fully expecting to be called out, but the kid behind me did not seem to care, even for all
the fuss to hurry. The toy passed on to the next kid, and so it went around the room. Not a word
was said, not an exclamation that something was amiss.

Isn’t that how it tends to go? You work yourself up, certain the world is going to come crashing
down and then nothing. No one has noticed the seemingly-to-you disaster in the making, and the
world continues to spin in an almost insulting fashion.

Humph, rude.

It is stories like these that I come across more and more when contemplating the (mis)adventures
of life. Journals, diaries, and manuscripts make for great reference material dependent on the
issue. I can refer to notes on divorce, jobs, or the near-complete project of growing up in 1980s
Greenville for the reminder: Been there, done it, move on to the next (mis)adventure.

That’s life in a nutshell, one big giant lesson for yours truly and a tale of caution (peppered with
humor to not make mountains out of molehills) for everyone else.

Bethany J. Royer-DeLong is a reporter for the Daily Advocate and Early Bird and a life-
long resident of Darke County. She holds a bachelor’s degree in work psychology and a master’s
degree in organizational leadership because she’s a sucker for all things jobs. You may reach her
at broyer-delong@aimmediamidwest.com.