All My Teachers Drank Tab
Just a lil’ ol’ story from my years as a youngster
All My Teachers Drank Tab belongs to the following groups:
Short stories - Spherical Scriptings and WMGIn a cruel stage of time called the early 80’s I was but a youngster, unknowingly forming the intellectually rugged but tender man-child I have become today. The process was one of unusual tasks and not so pleasant rewards.
1980-something. You weren’t shit without a pair of smooth Knight Rider underpants on. I think I was something like 7 or 8 and Michael Knight and his astounding vehicle named KITT had already won my heart. KITT was a talking Trans Am that would assist Michael Knight whenever he was in danger. Need I say more? I wanted every article of clothing, every toy, everything in the world that had the words “Knight Rider” on it. The greedy bastard I was, I got most of it. Lunchbox. T-shirts. Condoms. I was just missing one really important item: The toy car. I couldn’t let people know I didn’t have the car. None of my friends had it either and that was simply because they didn’t have the loot. I begged and begged and got turned down after every attempt. My Dad, Jimmy Breadwinner, was all about the phrase “Hell no” while my stepmother was more like, “Don’t worry, you’ll get it.” She avoided employment at all costs, never working yet always finding ways to get things she wanted, like car parts and weed. I was hoping her methods of attaining her desires would work in my favor.
She told me I should save money. That would have been great if I would have known how to come across any. She said I could collect cans. My only response was, “Awesome! I get to dig through people’s trash!”
“Christopher, no! That’s nasty,” she said. “We’re gonna ride around and if you see any cans on the side of the road you can pick em up, throw ‘em in a trash bag, and we’ll cash ‘em in then you will get your money for all of your hard work.”
She tried to make it sound like something I could have fun doing, but I just wasn’t that stupid.
I ended up digging through trash cans at K-Mart’s and in front of various shopping centers, all of these public places, in daylight I might add, so people could just see a little black kid rummaging his way through shit just to grab that empty can of Tab. Passersby would point and whisper in horror as I was on my quest for aluminum.
“Oh look. He looks really poor. He must be so hungry.”
“Yeah, that’s so sad. Hold on for a sec, I’m gonna give him a dollar.”
“Are you mad?! If you get anywhere close to him he’ll bite you and infect you with his poorness!”
The best part about collecting those cans was the process of cashing them all in. My stepmother would drive my sister and me down to the local dump and give them all to a polite, elderly woman there who stood behind a counter and looked like she couldn’t wait to die. I think what made those trips so special was not only that the considerate old lady would give my sister and I little peppermints but the fact that we got to go over and play at the playground located in the middle of the dumpsite. Twirling upon a merry-go-round with the smells of molded this and four-day old that assaulting my senses is a real life fairy tale that refuses to be forgotten. Not too many kids got to spend the early mornings of their summer vacations running around totally care-free on a landfill. I was one of the lucky ones.
To make things just a tad bit better, I never received that Knight Rider car. I never saw any of the money that was earned from my hard work. However, I do recall leaving the dump with my stepmother and going over to her friends’ house, where I was always told to stay outside in the unforgiving South Carolina sun while they sat inside played cards, getting stoned, and listening to Fleetwood Mac and Michael Jackson. It’s not that my entire childhood was disappointing, it’s just that’s the stuff that I’m lucky enough to remember.
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