The Mayor of Wentzville

When I was in elementary school, I went to a multitude of assemblies. I once went to an assembly where this guy dressed as Ronald McDonald acted out a twisted version of Little Red Riding Hood. I still don't know why he was dressed as Ronald McDonald, nor where the Hamburgler was, but I remember it clearly.

One assembly that held almost no meaning for me, but I still remember was one I attended in second grade.

There are a few reasons I remember this assembly. The first was that my teacher, Mrs. Smith had just went on maternity leave. We went from having this little plump, brown haired woman to this tall blond woman with a strong jaw and short, spiky hair. I remember I once asked her if she played football because of her wide shoulders.

The second reason I remember this assembly is because our class was almost in the front row, right in front of the stage. The stage was sort of this sacred place in my head. Only the girls in gymnastics were ever allowed up there, and in second grade I was way too short to climb up on the stage myself. So you either had to be cool enough, (and have parents rich enough) to be in gymnastics, or be tall enough, (which was another sign of the ultimate coolness) to climb up on the stage.

(As a side note, in fourth grade I actually got to be on the stage for the Christmas Pageant when my music class got to sing. I thought it was very cool. It was only a few months after that that the music teacher was arrested as being a child molester.)

Anyways, I was sitting with my class at the foot of the stage, looking up, waiting for the grand entrance of who knew. The kids in the bleachers were stomp-stomp-clapping their impatience, when finally the curtains were pulled aside and this short white woman with short red and brown hair in a purple pant suit trimmed in gold came out on stage. Her shoes were high heeled and pointy and her teeth were incredibly white. She waved that "I'm famous, please cheer" wave as she walked from the left to the right of the stage and then back to the center where microphone, the American flag and the Missouri flag were positioned.

She was (apparently) the Mayor of Wentzville.

Now she may have told us kids many great lessons that day, but I only remember one. Here was her story:

"I went to a department store one, you know?" She said that a lot, 'you know?' I don't know why we would have. We were ages five to eleven. "Well at the department store, I was trying on things, hats and shirts and scarves, you know? Well I couldn't find anything I liked. You know how that is. So, I left, but I left without knowing that I had..." And she paused for dramatic effect, bending forward slightly and looking all across the gymnasium turned auditorium, "A sticker on the back of my head!" And then she laughed, all high pitched like. She tossed back her head and shook the spikes like she actually had long hair.

"So I walked around the other stores on the strip," when she said this, several kids giggled, "with this sticker on the back of my head, you know?" She proceeded to shake her head from side to side like she was truly embarrassed by this whole ordeal. I didn't see where the story was going, so I started playing with my shoe laces.

"I am walking around, looking in stores, and people are looking at me like I am so crazy, you know? I have this sticker on my head, stuck in my hair, and they see it, you know? And no one stops to tell me. What does that make those people? Mean!" She pointed her first finger at the roof and the stage curtains, placing her hand and microphone on her hip. Some kids nodded, of course those people were mean for not telling her.

"And I probably would have gone the whole day with with sticker on my head until this nice old man came up. And you know what he said?" Nobody said anything. This was obviously the punch line. It was going to uproariously funny, we all just knew it. The Mayor was obviously a funny lady with her hair and her purple suit and her pointy shoes.

"Well he said, 'Ma'am, you've got a sticker in your hair.'" And she nodded. And she looked around at all of us kids, he face reading something like, You know?

"So you see kids, that is why you should always tell someone if something is wrong with them." She smiled and nodded again, and we all clapped. She was obviously some kind of manners prophet, I was just missing it.

"Don't forget to tell your parents to vote for me in the next election!" She waved some more, and smiled with her large white teeth, and exited stage right.

I went home that night, and when my mom and dad asked me what happened at school, I told them with a great amount gusto, "This lady came to our school. She had sticker stuck in her hair, and this old man told her that it was stuck in her hair. That's how you become a good person."