Word Count: 308
Sometimes a teacher will tell you something that you’ll remember the rest of your life. It was Miss Gibbs, Freshman Bookkeeping, that taught us to fold–not crumple–papers thrown away due to mistakes. It took less space in the trash basket, was less noticeable, quieter than shouting out our flaws. It likely saved my first job where I typed up sales orders all day and I never was good with that top row of numbers.
Sometimes you can apply lessons learned to other areas of your life. I started folding up men instead of crumpling them before I threw them away. I was never good with guessing truth from lies.
Jake was a long-legged, milk chocolate-tongued demon who took my virginity and whetted my appetite for men, all men. I admit I moved on before I’d told him I would but I folded him accordion-style so he popped open without pause for the next lady in line.
From Jake I’d learned patience and some body maneuvers that proved to be helpful in dealing with a long string of linemen that left me breathless and folding arms and legs and peckers into neat origami creations. There was Auguste and Damien and Joseph. Gerald and Carl and Sweet Louis. There was Forest and Jonathan and Clive and Sebastian and finally, there was the Ken to my Barbie, Charles.
Charles was unfoldable, made out of rubber bands and hard plastic parts. I loved him, yes, but the itch that made me seek imperfections that could not be erased (and so, toss-able) somehow turned into white-out instead.
Sometimes you learn something new that precludes all you’ve thought you knew as an established law of nature. Charles lives in my space and unfolds himself by some magical force of his own. And me, I’ve learned to bend.
