Remember when...?

The other day as I was multi-tasking (HA HA), I realized I had too many things in my hands and I decided to put some of them down. One of the things I was carrying was a very heavy textbook and I had it open to a very important page. Without thinking, I dropped my pen into the center "crack," closed the book as far as it would go, and carried on with whatever else I had gotten myself into at that particular moment.

When I returned to my lovely yet heavy textbook, a funny thought crossed my mind. I was suddenly plunged back into the second grade, and I heard myself getting chastised by the school librarian and/or teacher for marking my spot in a book with something OTHER THAN an actual bookmark:

"You'll break the binding!!"

Sound familiar? I got to thinking, there are a lot of piddly little rules in elementary school that are taken quite seriously at the time, and later on in life are just not a concern. I thought I would compile a list (to follow). Anyone who can remember any others can feel free to add them in the comments section. Even Jono. ;)

STUPID THINGS YOU WERE TOLD IN ELEMENTARY SCHOOL THAT JUST DON'T MATTER ANYMORE (nor did they then, probably):

1. Placing anything other than an actual bookmark into a book to mark your place will break the binding (and, inadvertently, will condemn you to the firey pits of hell for eternity).
2. Writing in pen before becoming a member of the Cursive Club is strictly forbidden, whether your mother bought you really cool pens already or not.
3. It is not okay to hold hands with a boy [girl].
4. Wearing a hat indoors will prevent you from getting a job someday.
5. Forget to put your name in the upper right hand corner of your paper in high school, and you can forget graduating.
6. Third graders color "all one way." (No they don't; some of them still scribble.)
7. Sixth graders set the example for how the rest of the school should behave. (This, of course, was stated before the evils of middle school took over the world, but you and I both know that the average fourth-grader is more mature than the average sixth-grader. I don't know why.)
8. Chewing gum in school ABSOLUTELY translates to sticking gum to the bottom of your chair.

Blah blah. We got fed so much crap. I remember my second-grade teacher paired me up in gym class with this kid who had warts all over his hand. Of course we were learning to TANGO and I had to TOUCH that wretched hand... he used to chase me around at recess with his wart-ed hand in front of him, torturing me with the mere thought of being touched, ugh. Anyway, good old Mrs. Berry said something like, "You just have to tango with him, you don't have to marry him!"

Oh, all right. Warts are fine then. Scratch one open and come on over. Ewwww.