Goldie Locks

I was pegged with many nicknames. When I went into sixth grade my PE coach, Coach Anderson, couldn't pronounce my last name so he called me "Grinder" instead. He did this on the very first day and it stuck. Everyone in the school called me "Grinder." Most of the students didn't know why I had gotten the nickname but they didn't care. They thought it was fun to use and most thought that they were teasing me. I was not easily teased. I was glad that coach had given me this nickname and I was proud of it. All through middle school I was known by others as either my first name, Scott, or by my nickname, Grinder. When I got into high school the name didn't stick as well. I had a wrestling coach who tried to use it on me but it never sounded the same. The funny thing is that a few years later when I was a senior and I had a sophomore and freshman brother the nickname stuck with them. In wrestling, the freshman would be called Grinder and I would be called Scott. I have a very loud and bombastic personality. I talked with everybody. There was never any popular kids or nerds that I didn't talk to or with or about and everyone seemed genuine. My junior year I was not being called Grinder because my brother had just come into the school as a freshman and the nickname was transferred to him. I became Scott or Mr. Grindstaff depending on who was speaking with me. Occasionally I would be called Hey You or What's your name or Buddy or Friend. One day while hanging out at a friends house we were all gathered around the small piano in her front room. We were singing, playing, and laughing when it was my turn to sit down I got on the bench next to the girl who was just finishing. She got up from the bench and I slid towards the middle and was readjusting the bench when the back right leg buckled and I went tumbling. The bench was broken and It was me sitting on it. I gained notoriety and fame overnight. Everyone laughed and called me Goldie Locks because she was the one that broke the little bears chair. I laughed with the rest of them. I offered to fix the bench but the dad of the girl said that he would do it. The saddest part was that all of my friends were there to witness my breaking of this bench. I took it all in stride as I always did and thought nothing of the bench again. Until of course the next time my friends and I were over at her house playing and singing around her piano. I could never sit on the bench again without getting teased. Now I thought that this would be the end of it. I broke the bench but it was falling apart anyway and anyone that sat down could have been the one to break the bench. I was at home eating dinner with my family. I sat at one end of the table closest to the telephone. The telephone was attached to the wall behind me and since most of the calls were for me or one of my two brothers I was tasked with answering it during dinner. The chair sat between three and four feet from the wall. Dinner was in progress when the phone range. I scooted my chair back and leaned to get the phone from the wall. I had the phone in my hand when the back of the chair, along with the back two legs decided they had had enough and wanted to take a break. The chair and I fell with a crash to the floor. The floor was tile with the lines of grout that separate the individual tiles. The chair legs had stuck themselves inside the grout line and I pushed back at the same time I reached for the telephone the balance was precarious but it happened so quickly that I landed on the floor with a loud bang kept the phone in my hand and said as calmly as possible, "Hello, Grindstaff residence." My family knew about my experience with the piano bench from weeks earlier and now that I had broken a chair in similar fashion I was done for. Goldie Locks was my new name and it stuck.