Musical Chairs

Sometimes, amongst a group of people, I can grow to become super popular. Usually, this leads to my eventual rise to tyranny and inevitable fall from grace where, after a period of being left on the fringes of my friends, I come back, humbled, as their formerly martyred friend. This is pretty much the story with every group of people I've ever been in, whether it was in elementary school, middle school, high school, college, or my early adulthood's workplace. But this story takes place before my first fall from grace, before I knew how bad I could make things for myself...again and again and again.

For some reason, I can never find a group of people that all get along with one another. There will be the odd time that they can all be civil together, but in the end, there will be blood. It just takes that one person with that one odd quirk to set off one of the more conservative members, or for the conservative views of one to anger the more liberal of the group, and suddenly we can't all be in the same room.

In early elementary school, I was crazy popular. People didn't tease me, I was friends with a huge portion of both classes in our grade, and I think I once forced my parents to throw me a McDonald's birthday party involving roughly 30 children. My mother never recovered.

In my grade two class, we got to choose our own seats. At the beginning of every month we would line up against the chalk board, the teacher would give us each a random number from a hat, and, based on our number, we would be allowed to choose what table we sat at. The kid that got number one would always choose the centre table, as that was prime seating. It was close enough to see both chalk boards, you could see out the window without being blinded by sunlight, and you were in whispering range of every single person in class.

In January, the fifth time we would be choosing our seats, I got number seven. My good friend Velma had number six, and my other good friend, Octavia, had number three. I told Velma to choose the same table as Octavia, and I would sit between them. This made Octavia very happy, and she doddered off to the table in the back left corner when her number was called.

Now, I knew that Velma didn't like Octavia, but I didn't realize that she was unwilling to sit at the same table as her, so, once again, I leaned over and whispered to her "okay, just sit one chair away from Octavia and I'll sit between you." Velma's number was called, and she chose the table in the front right corner, as far away from Octavia as possible, but positioned so that she was staring directly at her. Velma was evil.

My number was called, and I stood in place, stunned. Both Octavia and Velma stared at me expectantly, and I realized just how devious Velma really was. And then I stepped forward and sat next to her, because, really, as much as I liked Octavia as a friend, she could be crazy annoying.

Octavia's eyes were downcast as the rest of the kids chose their seats, Velma sat with her arms crossed, a smug expression on her face, and I just stared at Octavia, feeling incredibly guilty for abandoning her. I leaned over to Velma, asking why she didn't sit at Octavia's table like I told her to, and she just simply said "I don't like her."

When the final kid sat down, the teacher started going over the lesson plan. This was when Octavia lost her composure and burst into tears. Even Velma showed a little concern as the teacher rushed over to console Octavia, no one quite sure what was wrong.

After a few minutes of coaxing her, the teacher eventually got her to confess that she was unhappy with where she was sitting, because she had really wanted to sit next to me, and I had promised to sit next to her. The teacher then came over to me, pulled me aside, and asked why I had lied to Octavia, and I explained the situation as best as a seven-year-old could, saying that I had intended to sit between her and Velma, but since they had chosen separate tables, I had to make a choice of my own.

The teacher then asked the other kids at my table if one of them would be willing to switch seats with Octavia, and, of course, one of them was more than willing.

So Octavia sat down at our table, a smile spread across her face, bearing Velma and me no ill-will, apparently having forgiven everything. Velma, on the other hand, was not impressed with the situation. I think this was the first of her evil plans that backfired on her, and she didn't like the results.

For the next month the three of us sat together, Octavia rambling on and on about nothing in particular, interrupting Velma whenever she was trying to say something, and the result was that Velma grew a little distant from me because she was unable to actually speak to me without interacting without Octavia, and I grew irritated with Octavia due to the fact that I wanted to spend time with Velma.

I worried about what would happen when we were to choose seats the next month, but Octavia had grown close with another girl in the class, and chose a different table. And Velma was finally happy.