Scissors
I had been sitting in my 2nd grade classroom the day before trying my hardest to open and close my scissors and they wouldn’t budge. No, everyone else was snipping away on his or her arts and crafts project for the week, but not me. Mine wouldn’t budge. I looked closer to examine the apex. It appeared that rust had formed just above the handle. If I used both hands and squeezed super hard, they would close, and if I applied equally as much outward force, they would open. This didn’t make for very accurate cutting. I was depressed.
“Huh,” I said as I slouched back in my chair. “I quit.” My teacher came over to offer assistance.
“Here Shelby, you can use my scissors.”
“No thanks Mrs. Murray. My cutting would be just as bad if I tried using right-handed scissors. I’m tired of this anyway.”
“Suit yourself then,” she replied and walked away to help some other kids. My crafts were always the best and I never needed help. Today I thought as I was trying to justify my quitting, I will give the others a chance. After all, they needed all the help they could get. When art time was over, I still sat mourning my scissors while the others got to hang their new masterpieces in the hallway. At the end of the day, I stowed my scissors safely in my pretty perfectly pink Barbie back pack and took off for the parking lot where my mom waited everyday to pick me up.
“How was your day, sweetheart,” she asked as I eagerly climbed into the car with a sad vague expression on my face.
“Not so great, mom. Look at this.” I handed her the scissors and she looked at them while I buckled my seatbelt.
“Oh I bet your dad can fix this.”
“Well a fat lot of good that did me today. I didn’t make anything today. No one else had lefties. It’s kind of like a handicap being left handed you know.” My mom nodded, trying to take me seriously. But as soon as we looked at each other we burst out laughing.
“You’ll get them next week, okay?”
“Only if dad can fix those scissors.”
I waited for my dad and as soon as he drove up, I ran to the door and met him. He looked at the problem, and said it would be no problem to fix, and that I would be back at the top of my game in no time.
The next morning he gave me my scissors and they were just like new. “Thanks,” I exclaimed as I gave him a big hug. And there I was, standing in the bathroom facing my mom as she fixed my hair for school. At this particular moment, she was curling the front of my hair. I had my scissors in front of me. The finger part in one hand and the thumb part in the other. Snip, snip, snip, snip. I was opening and closing the scissors quickly, admiring how they worked so well now.
“You better not cut my dress, Sydney,” my mom commanded as she was fussing with my hair.
“Okay,” I responded still snipping away at midair.
My mom was in a pretty dress, which suited her well as she was very pretty. We had a lot of the same features. That always made me really happy because my friends always said my mom was really pretty and adults always said I looked just like my mom. We both had shoulder-length dark brown hair. Mine had more of a curl to it than hers. She said hers used to be curly, but hormonal changes due to pregnancy made it straight. Anyway, we also both had brown eyes and naturally perfect straight white teeth. Out oval faces were almost identical when you looked at her childhood photographs compared to mine. She had what people called an hourglass figure. Today she wore a perfect pink dress. It had a pink collar. It was really very simple, but she looked beautiful. The dress accentuated her figure with a pink belt that fit around her waist. She completed the outfit with nude hose and matching pink high heels.
Right after she gave her warning, the worst possible thing that could have happened happened. I began to cry. She didn’t know what I had done. “Sydney what wrong? Did I burn you?” I was full of alarm because I had only ever cried about two other times in my life (aside from when I was just a baby). The first time I can remember crying was when I had been climbing a tree. The tree had a perfect y-shape about 6 feet off the ground. I had been climbing when I slipped and my foot got caught toe down in the y.