Charles Olsson
AP English IV
Vero Beach High School
August, 2005
In the year nineteen hundred and eighty eight, a year exactly one thousand, nine hundred, and eighty-eight years after a date arbitrarily chosen many years ago to be the dawn of a common era... I was born.
There were no fireworks, no flashing press bulbs. None that I remember, in any case. There was just a squish as I left the womb and a thump as I hit the nurse's gloved hand. "It’s a boy," came a baritone voice from nearby, as I proceeded to bawl my eyes out.
Skipping over a few inglorious details, eventually I found myself in my senior year of high school. I've changed just a little since that hospital incident, so let's go over the basics:
I'm six foot even, the one height no one in the world believes when you tell them. Any taller they'll accept unconditionally. "Oh, you're eight foot three? Wow," or "Six foot one, you say? Cool." Any shorter, they'll take your word for it. "Three ten, eh? That's nice." But not six even. At the sound of those seventy-two inches, the entire world leaps yelping to its feet and shrieks for a tape measurer.
Maybe it's just me, though - I don't exactly have the body to go with those inches. Depending on who you ask, I range anywhere from scrawny to lanky. Despite my best efforts, I'm Central Casting's first choice for a starving artist.
I even have the artist look, to some degree. My hair is sort of wispy, and I'm told I often have a far-away look in my eyes. Good thing I look so underfed, or my artist role might get revoked for one that involves less dripping paint on canvases and more dripping drool on everything.
Not that I paint, mind you. Good heavens, no. I must confess, I have no artistic ability whatsoever. I won't go so far as to say I don’t have an artistic bone in my body - I'm told that I had quite the latent talent for finger-painting as a child. (Yes, I had the kind of teachers who were wont to say "latent talent"- and yes, I'm the sort of fellow who is wont to say "wont.") But that was many moons ago. Nowadays if I can tell you what color something is, it's a good day.
My skin is the sort of pale you generally only see on toothpaste and the living dead. It's pretty obvious why I never tan, though - with skin like mine, the sunscreen tends to blend right in. I can never tell whether I've rubbed it in all the way or not. To avoid such dilemmas, I go without the lotion... or to make matters easier, I just go without the sun. Photosynthesis and I do not get along well. If I were a plant, I would be dead.
All in all, I'm a pale, scrawny, six foot tall kid, wont to exclaim "Forsooth!" and "Verily!" in a faux Valley Girl accent.
Yes, six foot tall.
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