How I Met Parsons

1989. September.

I was 5 years old and I had gone to the much dreaded school that I had heard something about. It wasn't so bad. They asked me easy stuff like colors and to count as high as I could. (I got to 100 and then added tax. I knew there were numbers past 100, just wasn't sure how to get there. And I knew that tax always meant you had to pay more.)

There I met a lot of other kids, like almost 20 other kids. I saw this one kid who was called Michael, or Mike for short. (I think there was at least one other Mike there, but they were pretty different.)

I was in the AM Kindergarten class, so I recall playing behind the house in the afternoon. Lo and behold, but who were to come walking down my street? It was Mike. He was flanked by two other kids. Little kids. So I said, "Hey Mike!" He got angry as he approached. "How'd you know my name?" he bellowed. "It's me, René. We met at school today." That answer didn't seem to satisfy him. We were approaching melee range, so I dropped into a hyper-assassin stance I saw on TV as he and his backup entered into similar stances. As we worked up the nerve to throw a fist, kick, swipe, or bite, or something, he exclaimed, "Oh, I remember you!"

We both instantly dropped the aggressive stances. We were best friends afterwards.