I was a good student back in my elementary and junior high school days. I received decent grades, and sometimes above decent grades in certain classes such as computers or physical education. But then again, who doesn’t get an A in PE? Just show up, change, pretend that you’re doing something; instant and easy A. I was born with basically a giant “birthmark” on the top of my head where hair refused to grow. It was about an inch in diameter and no matter what happened, it was impossible for hair to grow in that particular area. I was harassed constantly throughout elementary and junior high because of it. “Hey, you have gum in your hair,” “Can you grow hair? Did you ever hear of MiracleGrow?” Those are a couple of the things I remember people saying to me. I got that on a daily basis. Later on in life when I was able to understand what cancer was, I learned that it was possibly cancer-producing and that it would be in my best interest to have it removed. I was informed of the risks, some of the risks at least. I’m pretty sure there was a risk of dying while in surgery but then again, when don’t we take a risk of dying nowadays? Sleep aids carry the risk of death; cholesterol-lowering medications carry the risk of death, among other commonly used medications. Then we have the maniac teenagers driving at 60 MPH in a parking lot with their radio as loud as it can go; they wouldn’t be able to hear a scream coming from someone they’re about to run over since they’re probably texting while driving with their radio that loud. Anyway, I was in 7th grade when I was to have this surgery done. I have a few vague memories of the day of the surgery. I don’t remember arriving at the hospital but I do remember waiting in my hospital gown sitting on a bed. A nurse came in to talk to me for a short while until the doctors were ready for me. They took me by myself and led me into the operating room. It felt weird walking in hospital hallways surrounded by five or six doctors. I entered the operating room and laid down on the table in the middle of the room. There were even more doctors and nurses prepping for me. They hooked me up to the machines, and I remember this one Asian doctor, he was really nice and explained everything that he was doing; none of the others said a word to me. He made me feel a lot more relaxed. After they finished connecting me to their machines, they put the mask on me and cranked up the sleeping gas. It was difficult to exhale, I remember, very difficult until they loosened the mask a little bit. I remember thinking to myself as I was falling asleep, “I guess I can stop breathing now;” weird memory.  

 

 I woke up from surgery a couple hours later and it was impossible for me to speak for a short while. I remember the nurse who was with me when I woke up apparently wanted to get me out of there as soon as possible; she was extremely pushy and tried to get me to talk when it was absolutely impossible to get a word out of my mouth. Probably from the air tube they stuck down my throat. I finally started to regain the ability to speak; I was changed into my normal street clothes and was seated on a wheelchair and was then wheeled out to my father’s car. As we arrived home, the pain medication they gave me at the hospital was beginning to wear off and I began feeling extreme amounts of pain. I don’t ever remember crying from the pain though, even though I was still just a young child. I’ve always had a high tolerance for pain all throughout my life. My mother put my pillow behind my head and let me lie down on the family room couch and watch television. I don’t remember which show I watched, or if I ate or drank anything. I do remember falling asleep for a short while though, hugging my teddy bear.

 

 As the days progressed, my scalp began to heal and I returned to school. Now the daily insults changed from, “Hey you have gum in your hair,” to, “Why is some of your hair blue?” The doctors stitched me back up with blue stitches. I remember this one teacher I had in 7th grade who never really liked me, he was my homeroom and math teacher. I suppose it was because I was extremely shy back in those days, I never raised my hand or volunteered answers even though I knew the answer. His dislike for me grew even more later on in the school year, which I’ll get to later on in this introduction. 

 

 I had a really close best friend back in my junior high years. His name was Jeremy; we did everything together and had all of the same exact interests. Probably was the best guy friend I’ve ever had. All of my teachers were alerted to my condition, that I had surgery and my scalp was extremely sensitive in that area, and to pay extra close attention to me to make sure no one tried hitting me or anything. Well, exactly that happened. A student was coming at me from behind with his binder raised, about to hit the back of my head with it extremely hard. Jeremy was luckily watching behind me and told me to watch out. I ducked the attack, turned back around and covered, prepared to defend myself; a technique learned in my karate classes that I took for three years. My math teacher saw this and took it the wrong way; he thought I was the one attacking the student. He said something to me along the lines of, “If I see that again, I’ll tell your mother you’re not as innocent as you look.” My best friend tried to explain what happened, but he wasn’t listening. It was probably because he knew the two of us always stuck up for each other no matter what went wrong, even if it clearly was one of our faults. My best friend could very well possibly have saved my life that day; I was told later on that my surgery took place right above a major blood vessel, and if it had gotten hit and the stitches had broke, I would’ve started bleeding out. I never officially thanked him for that; I should do that some day.

 

 Months later, as my scalp healed completely, we had a district school-wide field trip to a place called High Meadow. This was our usual end-of-the-year field trip that we went on every year since 5th grade. This was the field trip where a legend was created. I had a girlfriend named Kasia in 7th grade, if you would call it that. “Young love”, is more like it. We were together for about three years, it was very on and off for the last few months. Our best female friend, Jamie, said to me once, “I lost count on how many times you two broke up.” Good times. Anyway, a group of us hung out together at High Meadow, we played mini-golf together, ate ice cream together, swam together. I even went swimming with my clothes on that time. My parents weren’t too happy to hear that when I came back home that day. While we were playing mini-golf, we decided to start messing around a bit and hit the ball back up through the rock wall to see if we could get it to pop back up at the top. One of my other best friends at the time set the ball down and hit it as hard as he could. It missed the hole in the wall; it bounced back up to his face and hit his eye. His eye looked like he had gotten beat up, it was very bloody and all other sorts of colors. We all started looking for the school nurse who came with us on the field trip and we found her, and she brought him back home. He was surprisingly calm during the whole ordeal, he didn’t scream when he got hit, nor did he cry from the pain. 

 

 Jamie took a picture of Kasia and me standing next to each other. I still have that picture in my drawer; I don’t know why I still have it. Shortly after she took it, the two of us walked into the woods. We were warned prior to our arrival to not go into the woods. This is where the legend begins. We kept walking and walking until we came upon this group of four or six wooden cabins, I’m not sure how many there were. We picked one and went inside and sat down on a wooden bench which was a part of the wall. She seemed comfortable; I had a nail sticking into my head. I’m not sure how long we sat there in silence, with a few words spoken to each other, but it must’ve been at least an hour, possibly two. We just sat there in silence, staring at the wall across from us. We had talked about this the night before online; we had planned on having our first kiss that day. Of course though, things are different when actually faced with them than they are when you just talk about them. As I was slowly beginning to build up the courage to kiss her, we heard someone yelling my name not far from the cabin. It was my math teacher and one of my other best friends. We got up and ran outside to see what was going on. I don’t remember what he said exactly, but he said something along the lines of, “Did you not hear our school called?! You’ve made both schools an hour late for returning home because we couldn’t find you!” After that, we all ran back through the woods, through the mud puddles and finally reached solid pavement. I was out of breath, I slowed down. We reached the parking lot and our principal was standing there and asked us where we were. I pointed to the woods as I was still out of breath from running so much. “Get on the bus, we’ll take care of this when we get back.” 

 

 And so, that was the legend created by Kasia and myself in 7th grade.  High Meadow, I’ll never forget that field trip. We both got a day of suspension when we got back to school; my first suspension ever. I was a bit of a trouble maker in 6th and 7th grade. I have some other good memories which I won’t get into right now. You have a pretty good general idea of the type of person I was in my childhood; a very shy, caring, inside troublemaker. Later on in the beginning of 8th grade, as all things have an end, so do relationships. She broke up with me one day, I was crushed. There was so much caring for each other when we were together, I felt something special between us. It was sad to see it all end. We stopped talking to each other for five years until she came into Wendy’s one late afternoon and ordered food. I was working that day. She looked at me as I handed her bag to her, I looked back at her. We had an unspoken conversation, spoken through eye contact and facial expressions, “Where’ve you been? How’ve you been? I missed you, I missed talking to you, I remember all of our good times we had in junior high, we should talk sometime.” 

 

 Weeks went by before I gave any attempt at contacting her. Finally, I looked her up on Facebook and found her profile. I added her and we began talking again online, with me using the same screen name I used when we were together in junior high, and her with a new screen name. We had a chance at getting back together; we went to the park together a couple of times and held hands on the walk from the park back to her house. The weather that day had been cloudy and rainy, the same way it had been on the day of the High Meadow field trip. I felt that special feeling again when our hands connected, we had talked about possibly getting back together but she wasn’t sure if it was the right thing for her. She said a big part of her was saying yes, and a small part of her was saying not to do it. I told her even though it’s true in many cases that you should sometimes listen to that small part of you that says something; it’s not true for this case. I suppose maybe I shouldn’t have said that. She gave it further thought for the next couple of days until I received an email from her while at work saying that she doesn’t see us being together again. My knees began feeling weak, they felt like giving out. My mind was being overwhelmed with emotions and memories of us when we were together five years ago, when we were little. But here we are now; mature, grown adults, and those memories and feelings I had for her were coming back to me. I gave it a couple days and I got over it again. I met someone else at work, which I’ll describe in a later chapter. 

 

So here we are now, now that my life story is known to you, we can move on to what this memoir was meant to be about; my struggles and triumphs at Wendy’s. Some work nights I wanted to quit, some other work nights I wanted to work extra hours and get some overtime hours in. Pull up a foot rest, lay back and listen to your fireplace crackling; you’re about to hear a story of a different way of life, a different type of people and learn of their struggles in life, and that they are a commonly misunderstood type of person.