Back in high school, if you weren’t lettering in a sport, you had to take gym. Although, gym classes weren’t called gym.
Instead, it was called Life Sports. Activities you’d likely take up when you got older.
Except that I fucking hate golf. And tennis. And softball. And basketball. And lifting weights. And running.
Pretty much every activity I hate. Except horse riding. But they didn’t have horses. Thank God.
What do I like to do? I like to walk and throw darts in the pub.
That’s it.
Now get your fucking horse out of here. It’s blocking the dartboard.
Tag: childhood
Mama Mia
Deep in the forest, you’ll find an old witch named Baba Yega.
She lives in a hut that walks around on chicken legs.
How this came to be, I’m not sure. But it probably has to do with dodging property taxes. And relocating to better school districts.
Better, as in better sources of kids to eat. Ones with high truancy rates, because she can just bag them while they play hookey.
In fact, principals often invite her to come eat their students.
“Just the dumb ones, please,” say the principals. “We need to maintain high scores to keep our funding.”
Name Calling
Oh, the nasty name-calling!
Everybody calls Denzel an Oreo because he’s black, but he acts white.
Sung gets called a Twinkie because he’s Japanese, but he acts white.
Then there’s Morito. She’s gets called a coconut because she’s Samoan, but she acts white.
As long as there’s food that’s white on the inside, there will be racism.
Heck, there’s a food lab in New Jersey that’s working on a green food that is white on the inside so we can insult Martians who act white.
All these food-based insults explain why people are so damn fat these days.
And racists.
Tornado Soup
At first, I thought my son had asked for tomato soup.
“No,” said Owen. “I want tornado soup.”
Tornado soup?
I looked in the pantry. “We don’t have any. How about vegetable?”
Owen shook his head.
“Clam chowder?”
“Yuck.”
“Chicken and stars?”
“I want Tornado!” he yelled.
Yelling is a no-no in our house, and Owen spent the rest of the day in his room, without supper.
Or, so I thought.
That night, I checked on him.
His room was a mess. Everything tossed around and knocked over.
Like a tornado had hit it.
“It was delicious,” mumbled Owen, half-asleep.
Naming
I know a guy who used to be named Steve.
He was named Steve until his parents had another kid.
They felt that the new kid ought to be named Steve.
So, they named the new kid Steve.
“That’s my name!” said the guy who was formerly Steve.
“No, it’s not,” said his parents. “It’s Steve’s name.”
When he asked what his new name was, his parents said “Who cares? All that matters now is Steve.”
Nowadays, he calls himself “The guy who used to be named Steve.”
Unless he’s performing on stage. Then he’s called “Tiffany.”
Hey, don’t judge!
Slip n’ Slide
Teddy was in the high school marching band.
But instead of the slide trombone, he played the Slip n’ Slide trombone.
While everybody else marched around the football field and played their instruments, Teddy would get a running start and leap on to a wet orange plastic sheet while he played his trombone.
Everybody thought it was cool, and Teddy got cheers and shouts every time he slid.
Until he tripped.
Instead of sliding along the sheet, Teddy fell face-down into the dirt, and the trombone mouthpiece knocked his teeth out.
After that, he played the Slip ‘n Slide whistle.
George
Lisa wanted to name our son “George” after her great-grandfather.
So, we named him George.
He was a brilliant kid, and he was reading science magazines before other kids were potty-trained.
We couldn’t answer his questions, so we gave him a computer, and he asked scientists around the world all kinds of strange things.
At least it wasn’t porn and predators. Can’t be too careful these days.
His experiments grew larger and louder, until one day, he vanished.
“TIME MACHINE” was the last entry in his notebook.
Makes sense. My last photo of him looks a lot like Lisa’s great-grandfather.
School Days
For centuries, Catholics called the Jews “Christ-killers.”
I didn’t know this until I was sent to private school.
A Catholic school. The only private school in the area.
I didn’t have to go to Mass. Instead, I was sent to Study Hall.
I’d read quietly, until the bullies showed up.
“I’ll tell the headmaster,” I said.
“He’s the one who sent us,” grinned O’Brien.
I stabbed him in the face.
After I finished with the others, I went to see the headmaster.
“Self-defense,” I said.
He confessed to molesting those boys, and thanked me for helping to cover that up.
Crapmas
When I was very little, mom took me to the mall. Two strangers picked me up and stuck me in Santa’s lap.
I screamed.
Santa asked me “What do you want for Christmas?”
“DON’T TOUCH ME!!” I yelled.
“No, what do you want for Christmas as a gift?”
I said “I already got Hanukkah gifts. Sucky socks and sweaters. I had to write thank you notes. Mom made me write them again because I said they sucked.”
Santa waved his hands angrily.
The strangers picked me up again, I yelled even louder, and we were thrown out of the mall.
Menorah
The kids hate going to visit their Grandmother in the rest home.
I don’t blame them. She was a royal bitch before the stroke, not much better now.
But if I don’t teach them to respect their elders, how will they treat me and their mother if something happens to us when we get old?
“See that pretty menorah?” I tell them. “We wouldn’t have it if your grandmother hadn’t have smuggled it out of Poland. Shoved up her ass.”
Okay, so she bought it for a wedding gift. And it’s fucking ugly.
But it sure shuts the kids up.