The Mad Minute changed my outlook on life and made me the cynic that I am today. Read on if you have the courage to listen to my tragic tale.

In the second grade we used to have a system where if nobody made a disruption for the whole day the class would get a check mark. Something like 30 check marks meant a field day where we all got to go outside and eat ice cream and basically have the best day a second grader could have. The catch was that ANYONE could be disruptive and fuck it up for everyone. If you were the one to do this you would get an X. 3 Xs and you were OUT OF FIELD DAY. Our class was at like 29 checks and we were all super excited to be having our field day come up.

Nearing the end of day 30 Mrs. Ward busts out the mad minute. I was a pretty good student but the pressure of these MY GOD THE PRESSURE always got to me. I was also super competitive and hard on myself. So I was almost done and the timer goes off.

Suddenly my Irish ancestors well up inside of me and I stand up and scream outrage at the heavens my tiny fists clenched in rage around my pencil and the crumpled Mad Minute in my hand. Mrs. Ward looked at me with horror in her eyes and I realized what I had done. Every eye in the classroom branded me a traitor of the worst kind.

Mrs. Ward slowly rose from her seat and without a word put a big X on the board underneath the check mark tally and a smaller X on the sheet next to it with all of our names on it. It was my third check and I knew it.

The gravity of the situation set in and I sunk to my chair in tears. I knew that the field day was close at hand even with my outburst, but that for me it would only be as close as out the window. Now you would think that this would be the worst part of the story, but in fact it gets much worse.

You see Mrs. Ward actually really liked me despite the fact that I talked a lot in class and was occasionally a smartass. I think she felt like my rage might not have been worthy of "the X", and maybe she had been a little quick with the chalk so she let the class vote as to whether I should be allowed to participate knowing that I had held them back from field day for another few days.

A secret ballot was passed out and and handed back in. "Surely my peers will realize that they have nothing to lose by letting me eat ice cream with them right?" Sweet mercy I was going to get to participate after all! It was like a death row pardon! And then Mrs. Ward read the slips.

There was a pretty even distribution of yeses and nos. Each NO vote was like a knife in the back. Why wouldn't these kids, most of whom I considered to be friends want me to play with them? It was an honest mistake and it's not like I got field day cancelled or anything! From my count it was near 50/50 while the last few slips of paper were at the bottom of the bowl. The remaining few were all NO votes.

I was absolutely crushed. I sobbed. Literally sobbed into my hands at my increasingly tear soaked and snot covered desk. Mrs. Ward put a hand on my shoulder and tried to console me but her comforting words were lost in the racket of my plaintive wail. She let me sit in the hallway until I could regain my composure. I think I sat there most of the day.

So in the end field day happened and I sat inside playing with a globe listening to the cheers and whoops as my "friends" played on the playground and had sack races and got ice creams and won prizes. Lunch was meatloaf I believe. I ate it alone in silence.

TL/DR: The Mad Minute taught me that you can never trust anyone and that redemption is a dream of the foolhardy