Blow On It

I was accident prone as a kid, especially cuts and scrapes on my knees. Every time I tripped and grazed my legs on the pavement, or fell off the fence, or got to close to our feral cat Cleopatra, I’d end up with a bloody knee.
It was always a dramatic scene when this happened.

My parents played along and acted suitably shocked and scared for my life.



Dad was best at acting concerned, even if it was the teenest tiniest most pathetic scrape. But Mum was the best comforter.


At this point I was convinced the pain would never go away, and the world was ending.



After some reassuring Mum-words, I would start feeling like things might be okay.



Once she blew on the cut and the stinging went away, I knew everything would be okay.





But then I turned 5 and I went to school. There, I wasn’t the beloved only child anymore. There I was one of thirty snotty nosed, noisy brats. And our teacher hated us.

One day I cut myself playing hopscotch in school.

I didn’t know what to do, so I went up to the bitch Prep teacher. She gave me her usual expression of bored indifference.

I said the only thing I thought might glean some sympathy.


I wasn’t convinced, and I knew one thing: Blowing on wounds made the pain go away.


That upset me. First this bitch teased me because I only spoke Polish when I first started, then she doesn’t let me eat my food whenever I want (“food is only for recess and lunch, not during class”), then she tells me I’m not allowed to eat the Playdough, now she’s insulting my champion Mum. I was ready to rumble at this point. You wanna dance, bitch? Let’s dance.














The story ends with me storming off to the nurses office, in an absolute 5-year-old tantrum huff.

But revenge is a dish best served cold. 25 years later I’ve blogged about it. Take that, teacher-person whose name I can’t remember.