I was teased in school but it wasn’t because I had real or imagined “cooties”.
But there was this girl in my grade named Temika Hicks, and she was the quintessential COOTIE GIRL. It was almost as if you could see the cooties on her. Of course, you really couldn’t but the stigma attached to her was enough to make you see things that didn’t exist. No one would want to stand next to her in line or hold her hand when we did hand-handing activities in PE. Even the teachers were cruel to her.
Once I was on the playground and I saw some mean boys yell that Temika Hicks had COOTIES, and I almost believed them. I was used to being teased so I didn’t partake in their evil fun, but I didn’t stop them. And I feel bad about it now, especially since I realize that Temika Hicks was probably mentally retarded and hence had a legitimate excuse for being weird.
Oh yeah, there was this boy in the second grade named Robbie, who came in as a new kid in the middle of the year. For some reason, someone thought he had farted on his first day of class, and he was teased relentlessly after that for having cooties, or something like cooties. I was his friend, though. I remember we used to exchange Vulkun greetings (making the “v” with our fingers, very nerd-like). It was like our inside “joke”. But I never got cooties from him.