These are my flowerbeds 2 weeks ago. It would have been headline news if not for all the other stuff going on. Long gone by now.
When I was a freshman in high school I arrived at my locker one morning and someone had hastily scrawled “plastic and pasty” in pencil across it in small letters.
Because of course I did, I fretted about this.
Was this intended for me? If so, what did it mean? It’s a strange insult.
Did people thing I was plastic? Or pasty? I didn’t have a huge circle of friends or enemies. I kept to myself so it was unlikely that I had stirred up trouble with someone.
Plastic I can guess — phony? At that age anyone can be accused of acting phony. But pasty? Pale?
I didn’t erase it, I left it there. I mostly hoped the message wasn’t aimed at me.
But 40 something years later I still remember it. I can picture the exact location of my locker — I can’t remember my locker location for any other year.
