I often did things as a little kid that opened me to ridicule.  I was a scrawny little kid with reddish hair and freckles and I had a big mouth.  It really wasn't the greatest combination for avoiding the wrath of kids on the playground or in the class room.  Sometimes, however, I got singled out due to plain old bad luck.

In the fall of third grade we were going to have a party in our class and different groups of kids were tasked with bringing different things to school for the party.  I was in the group chosen to bring hot cocoa.  When I got home I told my mom and she looked in the cupboard and found a brand new box of swiss miss envelopes.  I put aside to take with me for the party and didn't worry about my responsibility any longer.

On the day of the party I remembered to bring the box (a huge win for me) and delivered it to the teacher.  As the party progressed she made the hot cocoa and handed out the snacks to the kids.  You never knew which hot cocoa recipe you'd get but I was pretty hopeful to get the one I brought in (I'm not sure why).

Eventually I got my cup of cocoa and I was pleasantly surprised to see that the stuff I brought in was hot cocoa with marshmallows!  I hadn't noticed that on the box I had thought it was just hot cocoa.  I greedily began drinking my cocoa but noticed the marshmallows weren't really melting they were just tiny.

A couple other kids noticed the same thing and then someone was watching our teacher make the next cup and he realized that they weren't marshmallows at all - the cocoa box I had brought from home was older than we realized and it was laced with meal worms.  I had just drank a bunch of worms with my cocoa and so had  a few other kids.

WORMS!

It turns out third graders aren't real keen on drinking worms.  Instantly I was accused of bringing the wormy cocoa in on purpose and in an attempt to trick the other kids.  Granted, I was not a very well behaved kid but I was pretty disappointed that I was accused of such treachery.  Plus, nobody seemed to care that I too was infected with the meal worms.

Eventually the teacher convinced the other students that I hadn't brought in the worm cocoa on purpose - they were sealed envelopes.  In fact, I still don't understand how the worms got in there.  However, the other kids still didn't appreciate the fact that I had fed them worms so they mocked me for not being able to afford good quality hot cocoa even though it was Swiss Miss.  Swiss Miss has always been a big brand in the world of Hot Cocoa to me - I had been proud of bringing in such a respectable brand for the party instead of no-name hot coca (which is what I had expected to be bringing when I first learned I'd be providing something).

No longer was I the scrawny red-headed freckle faced kid with the big mouth.  I was the poor scrawny red-headed freckled faced worm-eating kid with the big mouth.

To this day I am pretty careful about hot cocoa.