Most school kids participate in spelling bees.
My school? It had a spelling hornet. It was much nastier than a spelling bee.
But the private school in the area was even worse. They had a spelling wasp. Some kids ended up in the hospital after that.
All throughout the county, kids had angry red welts on their skin. Allergy medication was scarce, and the schoolyard drug dealers pushed epipens instead of ex or weed.
The state board of education intervened, and standardized all schools on spelling spiders.
Why spiders? Well, why bees? Charlotte was a spider, not a bee, right?
Tag: childhood
Acting Crazy
Small. Thin.
Forget Captain of the Football Team, I was King of the Drama Club.
I had the lead in every production.
Tom Thumb.
Hamlet.
Peter Pan.
The spotlight was mine… MINE!
Until… puberty.
I got tall, clumsy, and… other things.
This year, instead of Peter, I’m “a” pirate.
Not even Captain Hook? OUTRAGEOUS!
That little shrimp, Marty Finkelstein, stole my role and my Tinkerbell, Cindy Van Hooten!
You know when Tinkerbell saves Peter by drinking poison?
Clap all you want. She’s not getting up.
And this isn’t a rubber sword.
Meet me and your doom at center stage, Peter.
The Dead Writer
Mark’s parents made a shrine out of his room.
All of his writing awards and achievements were framed on the wall.
They put his favorite pen on the shelf. He stopped using it when his hands shook too much to write with it.
His last keyboard was next to it.
He switched to voice recognition, but he lost his power of speech soon after.
Next to his microphone was the NeuroCap which picked up his thoughts and translated them into his final two novels.
The last words of the novel were: I love you.
But they might not have been.
She Owns It
Sally Jackson is such a bitch. She acts like she owns the school or something.
Which she’s entitled to do, since she does own the school building.
Her grandfather built this mall a few years ago, but it didn’t do all that well.
Just as he was about to declare bankruptcy, a tornado hit the town, destroying everything.
The only thing left standing was this mall.
Instead of rebuilding all those buildings, the town just packed it all into the mall. So she owns the school.
And the clinic which we’ll put her in if she keeps acting like a bitch.
Darts
For 4 generations, my family’s company has made the best darts and dartboards in the entire world.
I was hoping that my son would carry on the family tradition, but he’d rather throw darts in the pubs and drink than run the company.
So, while he threw away his future in the pub, I was out looking for a buyer.
Eventually, I got an offer from a big gaming company that ran their divisions separately, and I felt they’d maintain the quality that our name stands for.
As for my son, he’s a bartender now.
But I never drink with strangers.
The Meal Plan
Back in college, the meal plan covered weekday breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
On weekends, there were just the noon brunches, and we were on our own for breakfast and dinner.
Most of us slept through breakfast, or we loaded up on beer at the tailgate parties for football games, but the truth is I never grew out of having milk and cereal.
Sometimes, it was corn flakes, but usually it was Lucky Charms.
Whatever the cereal, the cockroaches always found their way into the box.
Green clovers.
Blue Diamonds.
Yellow stars.
And brown insect corpses.
Yeah, they were magically disgusting.
Play The Ponies
My uncle Dexter would disappear every Friday night, and then return for Sunday brunch.
Sometimes, he’d have cash stuffed into his pockets, and other times he be flat broke and sporting a black eye or two.
“Your stupid Uncle Dexter plays the ponies.” my mom would say. “Stay away from him.”
So, that night, I followed him from street to street, until he reached the racetrack.
He wired up all the horses to a massive keyboard, turned on the power, and played them like a pipe organ.
It sounded awful, but not as bad as my sister practicing her violin.
Landing
Where was I when Neil Armstrong walked on the moon?
I was in my mother’s belly. She was 7 months pregnant with me.
On the moon.
As an observer for Rigel, she just calmly watched, and sent back hyperwaves home.
Later, after I was born and ate her corpse, I went back over her memories of the event.
Pausing on the ladder… and then those immortal words.
Mother was listening to the signal, but accidentally left an open microphone.
Her gasp when Neil said “a man” disrupted things a bit.
I pat my belly. “Be careful with open mikes, child.”
Backups
Parents are well-advised not to allow their children to connect to the network unlocked.
There are far too many worms and viruses out in the wild, and despite the claims in the commercials, firewalls don’t block and eliminate them all.
One minute, your son or daughter is sitting there, researching a school project. The next minute, they’re staring blankly and reciting a ransom note.
Fifty thousand dollars by midnight, and they’ll restore your child’s personality.
I agree with them: don’t call the police.
Just disconnect from the net and restore from backup.
(You do make backups of your kids, right?)
Daughter
After Eleanor died, I had to raise Rebecca alone.
When she said “Daddy, I’m pregnant.” I didn’t yell. I just asked her what she wanted to do.
The Taylors next door had been trying to have a baby for years.
Eight months later, they adopted Sarah.
Rebecca had post-partum lactation pain, so she bottled the milk and sent it over.
Then, she was babysitting her own baby.
When she graduated high school, she said she wanted her baby back.
No, said the Taylors.
“What do you want to do, Rebecca?
“Whatever it takes.
Grampa is coming, Sarah.
Grampa is coming.