It's REX!

Alright, so you know how there are random little things that, to others would be meaningless, but when you see them, it reminds you of a certain time in your life? A postcard, a toy, a song, whatever. Alright, well having a puppy tends to make you remember some of those times in your life because puppies get into EVERYTHING. They'll find things that you thought were lost for the past 6 years!

So the other day, Boston was laying in front of me on the floor, and was chewing on something that was bright green and white. I didn't think anything of it because he has a chew toy of those same colors. But then he got up and moved on to the next thing to chew on, and I could see what he was REALLY chewing on that was green and white... Do you remember Toy Story? Of course you do. And if you do, you sure remember Rex, the t-rex who tried to live up to the hype of his name, but was really pretty much the opposite. Well, that's what he was chewing on, and all of a sudden, I remembered where that toy came from.

See, when I was in 9th grade, I was kicked out of school because I was the son of a teacher who had crossed paths with administration from time to time, inadvertently putting me in the line of fire. One day I was caught eating an apple in the hallway, and suddenly I was being thrown out of school for a seemingly minor offense. Needless to say, I was dumbfounded. When I got to my new school, Taylor Jr. High, I IMMEDIATELY gained a reputation as a "bad kid" because I was kicked out of a school. I mean, I heard some of the most ridiculous stories as to why I got kicked out. Did you know I stole a police car?! Neither did I...

Anyway, so that being as it was, and me being pretty shy, I didn't bother trying to correct anyone or defend myself, and it just got worse. But amidst the constant cloud that it seemed was over my head, there were 3 people who were cool enough to ignore whatever they heard, and they were the 3 biggest reasons that I actually stayed in school. They were Karl, Mary, and LeDawn. They walked with me from class to class, ate with me, hung out with me outside of school, etc. It was more appreciated than I'm sure I ever told them, something I'll no doubt regret for life.

Well, at some point that year, one of them (I'll leave out who, incase he/she would be embarrassed) decided that I reminded them of Rex from Toy Story. I really wasn't sure how to take that. In fact, I'm STILL not sure how to take that. But I think, just to play it safe, I went with the "well good or bad, at least they were thinking of me!" tactic, and I'm sticking to it! So at some point, I think maybe for Christmas, this person gave me a small toy Rex, sort of as a token of our friendship, if you will. We laughed about it and all, but that was about it. Eventually it made it's way into a box of "old stuff" and was forgotten about. Then the other day when Boston came prancing around with it in his mouth, having found it who knows where, all of those memories, primarily good ones, came back to me about the 3 people who were nice and kind enough to go out of their way to be nice to the "new kid", even if everyone thought he was a "bad kid". I appreciate you 3 more than you know.