Millie

     It was going to be one of the happiest days of eight-year-old Millie's life - today she was going swimming for the first time. Millie had grown up in a broken-down tenement on a street without a single tree and had only seen swimming pools on TV. Because of the generosity of a stranger, this year she was able to go away to camp out in the country, and today was the day she had spent months dreaming about.

     Millie's bunkmates had already rushed down to the pool; it was hot and sticky, and they didn't waste any time. Millie carefully pulled out the old orange bathing suit that her cousin had given her. It was too big, but her mother had taught her to take a hair ribbon and tie up the straps so they wouldn't come down.

     Wrapped in a towel, Millie ventured down to the pool in a brand new pair of rubber thongs. The other girls were frolicking in the water, and Millie bolstered her courage to go in through the gate. She pulled off her towel and stood staring at the beautiful pool with its bright blue walls and shimmering water. It was like a dream.

     As she held onto the rail, about to put her foot onto the step, she heard someone shouting across the pool. It was the lifeguard.

     She yelled at Millie, "Hey, where did you get that ugly bathing suit? At a garage sale for clowns?" Everyone roared with laughter.

     The sitcom laugh track had taught all of these children that it is fine to laugh at someone who is being heartlessly ridiculed.

     Millie ran back to the bunk and did not go swimming that entire summer, or for the next seven years. To this day, Millie, mother of three, speaks of this incident with great pain.