11. Playground Drama
A ridiculous case of mistaken identity. I was playing on the school playground by myself at the end of the day, probably aged about 7. My Mum usually arrived to pick me up about five minutes after the end of the last bell, so I was just minding my business and swinging across the monkey bars until her car pulled up. A random lady started shouting from across the field at me. “Sarah! Get here now! Do not make me wait!”
Sarah is not my name, and I was the only kid on the playground at the time. I looked over at her confused, even gestured a kind of “huh?” signal to her, but she couldn’t see my facial features in the distance and still thought I was her kid. She continued. “Sarah! Don’t make me come over there! It’s time to go! You will be in so much trouble! Stop ignoring me!” The lady kept shouting and sounded like she was getting angrier. I tried to ignore her because even my little kid brain had realised that she’d mistaken me for her own child. I then started getting worried because she had started marching across the field towards the playground, all the while screaming about the punishments “Sarah” would revive for not following her instructions. “That’s it! I’m going to smack your bum all night when we get home! You’re not going to know what’s hit you!”
I ended up hiding behind the slide, and when she finally got to the playground, she looked at me, realised that I was not her child, and sheepishly said “oh, not Sarah”, before turning on her heels and leaving.
Funny thing was, my school was very small, with less than 100 kids, and there were no girls named Sarah attending then.