Schooled

What is your earliest memory of school? Most likely, it involves something embarrassing or disgusting… or both. “[The] inevitable thing about the concept of school is that eventually someone will throw up.” Veritas!

A collection of short-shorts, this memoir glimpses at things about which we’ve forgotten and those we have tried to forget. Schooled travels chronologically from kindergarten to graduate school, bringing the author’s recollections to life in passages that are each much too fun to be contained in a handful of paragraphs. Along with Nay, we feel left out at recess, vindicated after acing our reports, and wildly free on the LAST last day of school.

Nay hits all the coming-of-age rites right on the nose: spelling bees, drivers education, and first kisses. “Kissing is one of those things that seem self-explanatory yet can be totally messed up if you don’t know what you’re doing. Like sex. Or pumping gas.”

Funny, yet still matter-of-fact, Nay re-navigates her school years with both abashed hindsight and a sense of pride. After all, she may not have made varsity basketball, but she survived (and thrived in!) the educational system and lived to tell the tale.