She was in her eighth grade year. Her social studies teacher, Mr. Miller, was working towards his Masters Degree in psychology. He needed a subject. Kristie was elected.
He asked her privately if she would be willing to go through a series of tests, and take part in private sessions with him. He had already approached the school’s principal and psychologist about his plan. Her parents had been consulted too, and offered no resistance.
Kristie didn’t care one way or the other. She had her opinions. She knew she was being used in some form by this man who wanted to get something off of her. Not sex. She knew it wasn’t sex. She would tell him the truth. The unabashed truth and that was all.
She wasn’t afraid of the truth like some people were. She wasn’t afraid to call people out on their double standards and hypocrisy. She was only fourteen years old, but she saw things like an adult. Maybe she saw things even more astutely since the straps of society hadn’t been cinched around her.
She didn’t think there was ever a chance that that would happen. There would be no straps cast around her free spirit and love of life even if it meant complete restriction, which she was used to by now, or imprisonment, which was what her life was like when she wasn’t either in school or at rehearsal. The teen years were hard. She couldn’t wait to be eighteen.
Mr. Miller asked her all sorts of personal questions about controversial subjects. He asked her about her sexual experience. She was honest with him and told him that even though lots of kids thought she had already gone all the way, it wasn’t true.
At that point she was saving the final frontier for marriage. But she would do everything but full on intercourse with any guy she felt like being with. She liked to fool around and she didn’t care what people thought. Girls should be free to have their fun too. She spent plenty of time “making out and riding the finger” but it took a couple more years before she would go all the way.
She had been raised in a liberal house hold in terms of philosophy. But it didn’t turn out too well in actuality, however, when her sexual attitudes and appetite began to mimic something out of Playboy magazine. Her parents were like, “Whoa, we didn’t mean YOU should be sexually free… We didn’t mean YOU should go out with black guys, Mexicans, or lesbians…” She told Mr. Miller all about it.
They also discussed religion and politics. Even at her young age she held the liberal ideals she spouted all through her adult life. She didn’t really believe in God, but she didn’t blame people who were religious. She felt religion was a weakness in a way, but she could not totally negate it since she didn’t actually know for sure.
She guessed she was an agnostic, but she liked to imitate her dad and proclaim that she was a Pagan because it usually got a reaction. She liked getting a reaction. Any reaction would do. Mr. Miller took notes and put her through a series of tests. IQ tests and psychological profiles.
“Do you like to go to the bathroom?” was one of the questions. She thought it was a weird question. “Of course, I like to go to the bathroom,” she told Mr. Miller. He said that most people answer “No” to that question and her answer made her different. In her mind anyone who had ever had a problem with constipation would have answered, “Yes, please, I’d like to go to the bathroom.”
He gave her a test where she had to look at pictures and tell what was happening. Like, “The baby is sitting on a chair and crying,” Kristie says.
“Why is she crying?” Mr. Miller asks.
“She has wet her pants and is cold,” Kristie responds.
He shows her another card.”The dog is chasing the ball. He is happy,” Kristie says.
“Do you like dogs?” Mr. Miller asks.
“I love all animals and plants too,” she answered meaningfully.
The most ridiculous test was the the Rorschach Test. Every single picture he showed her looked like a butterfly or a moth. He suggested, “Don’t you see two people kissing here?”
“It looks like a moth to me,” she stated beginning to get bored.
At the end of all the sessions, she was proclaimed “really smart and creative.” Mr. Miller made her an aide in his fifth period history class. “Those kids could do with some better modeling.” He explained that he wanted her to help him present lessons and help the kids in the class get excited about learning and do better overall.
All of the meetings and tutoring didn’t benefit anyone except Mr. Miller. He got his Master’s Degree and eventually his PHD, but the kids who needed help would always need help, and Kristie’s feet didn’t touch the ground for another ten years. She would live her whole life as an anomaly.
(First published 8/28/13)
