truth has a peanuty smell

sometimes, kids challenge you.
Most of the time, they're pretty straightforward. They ask for what they want. They tell you EXACTLY what they think. They teach you some moves from last friday's breakdancing class or demand your attention towards the new cheer they learned. Life, through a child's existence, is pretty simple.

but sometimes, pretty simple challenges you.

you're trying to explain kindness and respect to an eight year old. They're understanding the concept, they've made their apologies. the dramatized shit storm that just occured has passed. Then the sun comes out and they blind you by saying, "but i just dont want to be friends with her. Can you tell her that i just dont want to be friends with her?"

people are not supposed to all like each other. that's why we have innate interests. its creations way of cultural organization. i for one, do not like every make and model of person in the world. I dont like intellectuals. I don't much care for businessmen. I dont like girls that wear platform foam sandals. I rather not be arround arrogant folk, country music singers, people that complain too much, leeches. I imagine myself sitting at a picnic table, preferebly in pigtails and smoking a cookie jar cigarette trying to share the markers with my new "friends", trying to believe how important it is to make as many friends as possible here at camp. Use me, abuse me. Would you care for a light? Yes, yes i will thank you. Then there would be the leech.

"dont worry, taylor is just like this sometime. I'm sure you'll be friends by the time tomorrow comes around. Try to find someone else to play with today."
stall. the reject tries to make friends with taylor's replacement aquaintence and thus (thunder lightning strike) that bizzare love triangle. New Order. Ha.

Then there is Miss Miranda. There are some girls at camp that are slightly...off. Some are more obvious. Miranda may quietly hit some stages, among other things, pretty hard. She hit me pretty hard with this one.
She does not want to sit on the edge of the bench today, she did yesterday. The pairs of pretties at her table are asking her to move so they can sit next to each other. Twos against one...LeBon would argue that the twos are gonna win out. They do, no theory required. Miranda drops her shoulders and moves to the end of another green plastic picnic bench.
These things are never about sitting spots, or who did and who did not get the prize, or who did and who did not get the lime green water bottle. These are starting points on a psychologists wet dream. A child with honesty so blunt they could knock out a robber. Pre-genius and lacking deflection skills. A problem with a promising solution. Sometimes.

I'm tired of everyone telling me what to do! Tears. Everyone always tells me what to do. My friends at home always tell me what to do, they make my Barbie do all the bad things and i dont want to do it.
(forshadow, shit. Prepare questions.)
do you tell them that you would like to do something different?
They dont listen.
do you tell them that it bothers you?
They don't care.
Why do you play with them if they're not nice to you?
They're all i have. Tears Tears Tears.
(stop. draw blank.)

They're all i have. I want to erase her mind and put it back nice and spakling fresh. You're not supposed to know that yet Miranda. You're not supposed to know that you get thrown on a block or at a bus stop or in a school and what you get is whats there. Pick the apples with the least worms in them, the ones that have only one or two brown spots. Or worse yet, try to never think of yourself as the one in the dirt, under the farmstand table, half eaten by a robin; shriveled and wasted. I realilze that i know nothing about this child. The only thing i do know is that she asks too many goddamn questions, she complains and doesn't listen and I often find her dancing by herself on the porch of Ranch House. I look at all the other girls; they're laughing, singing sponge bob songs, playing with each others hair. The quiet ones look like oil painted portriats; even they have found each other. I look at Miranda. Would i be your friend?

See all the girls in our unit? You can be friends with any of them. How about you try sitting at that table where the girls will treat you better and not make you do things. You can be friends with anyone you want. I'm sorry that your friends at home treat you that way. You can be friends with anyone you want. How does that sound?
Nod.
Can i do anything else to make you feel better?
(everything that i'm worth has turned to dust and is now falling out of my mouth in the form of this ridiculous question)
Shrug.
Ok. Give me a hug.
Hug.

Miranda finishes lunch in two minutes; plays with her lanyard string alone on the front porch of Ranch House.
Part of me feels she's better off that way.