The only thing I wrote in college to survive the fallout:

   I attended my local public primary school for the first grade, and once I had conquered my fear of the bus, the teacher, and the other children, I think I actually enjoyed it.  I remember the enormous wooden playground serving as home base for so many colorful adventures with my colorful sidekicks.  There were arts and crafts; I recall my first, exhilarating experience with Papier-Mâché.  There was a comfortable, carpeted corner where Mrs. Chase would always read us stories after recess.  She was a wonderful teacher.  I thought so, anyway—by mid-October she began telling me to bring toys to class because of my nasty penchant for tugging her sleeve and asking for extra work when I finished mine early.  I was a real nuisance—must’ve been all those damn books I was reading.  Anyway, one day my mother was present while I was loading my Ninja-Turtles backpack and was puzzled by the exquisite ratio of Matchbox cars to books.  She was even more puzzled when she discovered it really was my teacher’s idea.  Thus, the curtain dropped early on my publicly funded education, and the real circus began.
    Climbing out of the car on my first, fateful day at St. Mary’s School, I remember my father reassuring me that it would be just like my old school.  When I pushed open the big front door and was greeted by a dead guy nailed to a tree, I decided he was wrong.  White concrete walls and tiled floors reflected cold fluorescent lighting as the secretary led me to my classroom.  Cozy.  My new classmates were saying the pledge of allegiance as I entered—except they were getting it all wrong, and facing the wrong way with their hands in the wrong places.  Turns out they were pledging allegiance to that dead guy from the front entrance instead of the flag.  Witnessing these uniform-clad automatons reciting their morning prayer, I came to two very important realizations: I had not seen a large wooden playground anywhere, and I had a lot to learn.
    And learn I did.  Throughout my seven-year tenure, in addition to my regular schoolwork, I learned when to recite the Our Father and the proper occasion on which to Hail Mary.  No more of those frivolous arts and crafts, I had religion class now.  I learned when to kneel, stand, sit, speak, and shake hands during Mass (I wanted so badly to roll over and play dead.).  Some of what I learned made sense, like long division and dirty jokes.  Much of it, though, did not sit so well.
    For instance, every year when the first crisp, white flakes fell from the sky, a crisp, white letter would be sent home with each student, boldly emblazoned with the phrase: MUST BE SIGNED BY STUDENT AND A PARENT/GUARDIAN, as if the large type would alert our parents-slash-guardians to its crumpled presence in our backpacks.  The contract stated, in the severest legal jargon, that were the student in question to pick up, throw, or attempt to throw a snowball in any direction at any noun in our fair schoolyard, that student would immediately be marched to the front office and a call would be placed to his-slash-her parents-slash-guardians.  The penalties listed for subsequent offenses ultimately resulted in excommunication and death.  No snowballs?  Who the hell were these people?  Until the fifth grade, the terror of the phone call was enough to keep us making our snowmen square for fear of being accused of assembling weapons of mass destruction.  It became widely assumed that the formation of a snowball was, in fact, the eighth Deadly Sin. 
    I never really understood about the uniforms, either: plain grey slacks and blue-and-white striped oxfords for the boys; blue plaid skirts with blue button-up shirts for the girls.  At first none of us could tell the difference.  But as we grew older, we began to ask questions.  Why do we have to wear these every day?  Would God really mind a little variety?  What the hell are “slacks”?  Our unsatisfying responses would float lamely across whichever of the drably identical white rooms we found ourselves in—something about “They prevented us from being consumed by the superficial, allowed us to focus on more important matters than what our classmates were wearing, and gave us all a sense of pride in the way we looked.”  Oh, and don’t forget the Bible quote.  Clearly, in addition to creating the universe, God was quite the fashionista.
    In addition to wearing them, we had to wear them correctly.  That meant my friends and I were constantly craning our necks and performing various acrobatic feats to determine whether our shirts were tucked in behind us.  That also meant the young ladies were constantly being chastised for rolling their skirts at the waist until the hem came well above their knees.  Apparently our priest was of the mind that the appearance of leg joints would stir us young lads into a hormonal frenzy.  Granted, he may have had a point, considering, at that age, our reaction to the word “breast” and the word “toaster” was roughly the same.  It didn’t take much to get us thinking about…well, you know. 
    Our priest was another, and remains I think my least pleasant “bone of contention” with St. Mary’s.  Priests are generally thought of as pious and understanding; Father Hemstead was cold and bitter.  Somebody once had the genius idea to involve students more directly with the Church, so the disgruntled and unwilling Father Hemstead was called to participate in a question-and-answer session with each class one day a week.  Thrilling.
    He would amble through the door, generally ten or fifteen minutes after expected, clear a space for his robed girth on the first article of furniture in sight, and slump heavily upon it.  We would watch this ritual silently, waiting for him to remember our presence and commence our hour together with a nod or a grunt or some other signal indicative of his holy wisdom.  Then hands would begin to peep into the air, and questions about why women weren’t aloud into priesthood and requested explanations of the holy trinity would evoke completely inadequate, often single-word answers. 
    Father Hemstead would never call on me unless he absolutely had to.  Only if there were no other hands to choose from and he could find no suitable excuse for leaving early would he reluctantly mumble my name.  I was always ready with some previously concocted, penetrating question about the latest inconsistency I had noticed in the Catholic dogma.  Once, I pointed out something I had learned in science class earlier that day—that ladybugs only ate aphids.  I asked the already irritated priest how, in the forty days and nights they were allegedly on the Ark, Noah’s two ladybugs could possibly have survived along with his two aphids if one had to eat the other to live.  His answer was very enlightening indeed.  He walked out of the room.  In my eighth-grade year, Father Hemstead took an extended leave of absence.  We were told he was at a religious conference.  What we were not told was this was one of those alcoholic rehabilitation “religious conferences.”  We didn’t see much of the good father after that. 
    My time at St. Mary’s was hardly unbearable.  Turns out those praying little automatons were human after all, and together we would lament the injustices of tucked-in shirts.  However, I never felt as if I fully belonged at St. Mary’s any more than I belonged with Mrs. Chase.  I was told I asked too many questions.  Which meant, essentially, I demanded too many answers that my educators were unable, unwilling, or simply too lazy to give.  It was only after four years at a public high school that I truly saw the value of a private education.

But still, my Matchbox cars have never again seen the light of day.