As a child, I maintained a love-hate relationship with the month of August.

On the one hand, it was my birth month, which meant presents and a homemade chocolate cake. On the other hand, it also marked the beginning of another school year.

Our school years shape our character and determine the type of person we’ll grow to be more than any other period of our lives. But I must tell you, I embraced that period about the same way Spanky McFarland once described his years in the Our Gang comedies:

“I wouldn’t take a million dollars for the experience, but I wouldn’t give you a nickel to do it again.”

On the whole, I loved my time in school. I loved my teachers and classmates. But the feeling I had in the pit of my stomach as late August drew near each year was akin to the feeling you get when your doctor is slipping on his rubber glove.

You just don’t see how anything pleasant is going to happen from that moment on.

Gone are leisurely summer days, swimming pools, cookouts, and sleeping in. For the next nine months, it’s alarm clocks that go off far too early, exams, and homework that never seems to end.

In elementary school, they tortured us with recess to remind us what summer vacation was like. I majored in recess and minored in lunch.

I nearly changed my major once when I had an embarrassing encounter with a pretty little girl named Ann. I was probably nine at the time, and I somehow found myself alone with her on the playground, commanding her total attention which was unusual for me.

Schoolyard Casanovas were plentiful, and while most of my friends had already sneaked a kiss or two, I lagged woefully behind in that department; a total romantic klutz.

I should mention that in those days, all young boys wore jeans to school. They weren’t cool, stylish jeans like the name brands of later generations. They were strictly rugged and functional with pads in the knees.

Your mom bought you three pair at the beginning of the school year and prayed they’d make it to the next spring before you either grew out of them or damaged them beyond repair.

These jeans didn’t button. They had a durable metal snap in the front that was supposed to stay snapped no matter what. I was about to learn that wasn’t true.

While Ann and I were discussing the wonders of life, or what we did during the weekend – I don’t remember exactly what – I raised my arms, stretching them to the heavens and engaged in a lengthy yawn, primarily to demonstrate that I was comfortable around her and might even entertain the notion of a schoolyard kiss.

Unfortunately, as I stretched and extended my belly, my durable snap popped open and sent my zipper traveling downward at a high rate of speed. A belt would have prevented most of my shame, but on that particular day I had neglected to wear one.

Though nothing important was exposed, I was mortified. Ann shrieked loudly enough to wake the dead in the town cemetery six blocks away, and she quickly ran to the safety of her friends.

I worried that she would expose me as a playground pervert. Images ran through my mind of angry school officials, my picture in the paper’s crime section, and my shamed parents dragging me off to family counseling.

But to Ann’s credit, she never told a soul. She was probably just as embarrassed as I, and both of us preferred to forget the whole thing. We would move on, and next time I would remember to wear a belt before stretching.

While it was a small moment that may have sealed my doom as an awkward romantic, it happened in school where so much of our lives and futures are defined.

School is a place where we don’t just learn from books. We learn from each other and our common experience.

And yes, I wouldn’t give you a nickel to do it again.