And, oh, how I watched it: Letter People, Clyde the Frog, Voyage of the Mimi, and one of my all-time faves, Read All About It.

Even learning, early on, how to convince U.L. that some shows were appropriate—How could they not be; “It was on PBS, right?”—when I knew they probably weren’t. These shows ran the gamut from some particular episodes of Dr. Who all the way to the very chancy, risk-taking, anything-goes Nova.

I’ve also made no little secret to my rather unhealthy and confusing relationship with the television, that began Way Back When.

One that continues to this day.

As a child, for instance, I thought Mr. Rogers asked his very pointed questions because he fully expected an answer. Many are the moments that U.L. walked in on me and the TV.

What appeared, at first glance, to be a young technophile’s attempt at French kissing the television screen was, sadly, my pre-pubescent and misguided effort to scoot as close to the TV as possible and carry on a conversation with Mr. Rogers.

His success rate at “guessing” correctly what any normal child would have said in response to “Won’t you be my neighbor?” did nothing but encourage me.

And yet, I was not tube-glued.

I didn’t have to watch television. It wasn’t an obsession…yet. (I’m not sure that watching the TV ever has been the actual obsessive part of it, anyway.)

I mean, please, let’s not forget: I was the child who asked for a chalkboard for his eighth birthday with the retractable metal chalk holder so I wouldn’t get my fingers dirty. Until I was thirteen, I unofficially educated every stray child and stuffed animal in my neighborhood, using my oldest sister’s discarded college textbooks. I may have struggled in teaching them both long division and the importance of cancelling by nines, but I was adamant that they know front-to-back the first five chapters in The Psychology of Reading.

My pop quizzes were hell.

But, back to the TV.

It began innocently enough, my slow and gradual need for the small screen. As I began to wean myself from educational programming, a feat of daring-do, I discovered that the rest of the world of television was not one bit interested in teaching children…or teaching, period.

They didn’t care who was watching; they just wanted to keep you watching.

It worked on me.

My first venture away from PBS led me to two shows in particular that have scarred me to this day: Dallas and the Golden Girls.

Though I blame the Golden Girls, mostly.

Among many other Things I Misunderstood About TV Programming That Wasn’t Educational, I naively thought that each television show that had a catchy theme song, with lyrics, was sung by a member of the cast, like most of PBS’ children’s shows.

I held this belief firmly until I was easily in my early 20s. Even after I was told that that was preposterous.

 I kept pretending it wasn’t.

It became a game. (I also pointed out that sometimes, it was also the truth—Ja’Net Dubois, of Good Times fame, wrote and sang the theme song to The Jeffersons. And let’s not even get started on the obvious vocals behind All in the Family and Gimme a Break).

But, this theory didn’t hold water for other sitcoms and serials, though, for years, I swore Rue McClanahan sang the opening to Golden Girls, and I gave full, 100% props to Loni Anderson for WKRP in Cincinnati.

And where shows like Knight Rider and Dallas and Knots Landing had no lyrics, I instead envisioned which stars were most likely the ones playing the instruments during the opening credits, sitting in the studio recording the very music that stirred us to the emotional minefields of their respective plots: the dangers of Texas greed, the pitfalls of suburban lust, and the desire to solve crimes while wearing epidermal jeans and a patent-leather jacket.

My results? William Daniels (the voice of KITT) obviously played a mean synthesizer. He was half-robot, anyway. Hands down, Victoria Principal for Dallas. I mean, she looks like she could handle an entire brass section, all by herself, eyes closed. And who else but Michelle Lee? Hm? I mean, really, who else? Although, had I given Michelle a sick-leave day, her stand-in would be, Joan Van Ark.

I think you know why.

Eventually, this game faded…as it didn’t really give you many alternatives.  But not before it planted the seed of obsession.  Because the only way the game could continue was by “acquiring” new TV shows.

By the time that took hold, within me, I was hooked. I was also a teenager, by then, who no longer needed drab and senseless plotlines and games. Instead, I had developed “crushes” and was in search of relatable characters who could “show me the way.” Sadly, I didn’t find many.

Not on rural television in the backwash of Mississippi.

I didn’t start my serious orbit around the sun that is now my Sony 40”, until I was past the embarrassment of high school and feathered hair.

Ah, TV.

I’m not sure if it’s because it was so off-limits during my childhood or if, as I’m perhaps a little more inclined to think, it became a safety, a comfort, to have the noise in the background. I often fall asleep with the TV on, simply because it fills the space, with me. As if I’m at a party, and just…well…I guess I got bored with everyone there and fell asleep, but the point is it makes me feel a little less lonely.

Even when I’m not feeling alone.

And now, you know, I have to admit, at 33, I think I realize the national obsession people have with the small screen. Maybe even why U.L. was so reluctant to let it be so much a part of our daily routine.

It’s why people feel they are “kings (and queens) of their castles.”

The power.

The power of that remote control. The power to choose your entertainment.  The luxury of having broken hearts, murders, crimes, and rumors introduced and resolved in the course of an hour or less.

It’s convenient, fictional, and safe. (Like most Power.)

I can mute them, I can change channels, I can even freeze live TV thanks to Tivo and DVR. 

Which makes me, like, the boss of TV and all the people who live in it.

I’m the freaking boss of TV.

But don’t worry: I still read.

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I’m holding up four fingers, at this very moment, even though you can’t see them.

But, that’s it: four items. Four, random though purposeful, inconsequential items.

One of those items was a candy bar. A Kit-Kat, actually, and it was easily stolen because I used to run the “candy store” between class periods, at my high school. 

The smart kids got to do everything fun, especially when it involved cash handling.

What do you want from me? The Kit-Kat logo is copyrighted.

I only stole one candy bar and only the one time because I had convinced myself that morning that I was experiencing the onset of premature adult diabetes, which I think is how most people experience it…very suddenly.

I mean, it can’t take, like, what, about twenty minutes, tops?

I had my assumed hypoglycemic attack right before third period (World History), standing behind that booth in my maroon windbreaker and tight-rolled jeans and I didn’t want to walk all the way to my locker to get my money (rather, I couldn’t. Who would run the “candy store?”) so I just took the Kit-Kat and ate it, right then and there.

I never paid for it.

Then there was the time that I thought I’d stolen ice cream. But, it was at a buffet. So, there’s that. Shan dared me to do it, truth be told. We were returning from a church youth trip where we’d done some noble thing like sing hymns to the homeless outside Wal-Mart, something like that, and we’d stopped on the way back to eat at this restaurant called Quincy’s, now gone the way of the dodo. It was a country-style buffet, so naturally everything was included in the price, even the ice cream.

Still, I thought I was being a rebel. I was, let’s face it, not the brightest bulb in the tool box.

Oh, did they laugh at me.

What was I to do to get even except roll their yards.

During my formative years of high school (when most of my five-finger discount days were lived), there was something akin to an unofficial moratorium on rakish youth purchasing more than one package of toilet paper. Honestly. A policeman, Toby (as it was a small town, we all knew each other. Also, he went to my church) would patrol the aisles, but especially on Halloween and Valentine’s Day.

(Far be it from me to tell you why Valentine’s Day was the other hallmark holiday of choice for Those Who Rolled Yards).

This problem then, as you see, was what led to my next stolen item: toilet paper. Now, I wasn’t about to waltz into Piggly Wiggly and try to manhandle a suspicious amount of TP. I couldn’t risk the scorn come Sunday if Toby caught me.

No, I had to plan this out, accordingly. And it began with a sudden rash of sleepovers. I planned this crime spree out over three weeks, with my cousin Mikey’s help. It was a perfect cover. Who didn’t like a sleepover?

Ninth graders in my town, at my school, certainly did.

If you look closely, you can see better.

We all had freshly minted driver’s permits, which meant you could drive to one of three places, without much issue: Piggly Wiggly, Sonic, and the movies (and sometimes if you played your cards right, the First Baptist Church parking lot across from the funeral home…but let’s not push it). 

The sleepover came in handy because we didn’t all have cars.

So, under the guise of liking people I didn’t, I spent several long nights, “hanging out,” driving the “strip” about a million times over for some unknown reason – it always tickled me that I ever did the “strip.” I mean for crying out loud, I saw these people every day, all day, the whole week long.

This must be what they mean when they say that youth is wasted on the young.

Then back at the house of choice, as we all settled in for the night, I’d excuse myself to the bathroom and snatch a roll of their toilet paper; incidentally, you can tell a lot about a family from their choice of toilet paper. Anyway, I’d carefully hide it in my overnight bag, and after a few weekends of drivel and driving, I’d amassed a goodly pile of paper products.

The rest I stole from my own house, which, when all was said and done, was not the best of ideas.

Now…that’s what, like, three items, right?  Well, two, I guess:  the ice cream doesn’t count.

Nor do pens. I’m not sure if you know this or not, but it’s never wrong to steal a pen.

And it’s not always your fault, either, the stealing. I mean, I inadvertently stole one of Matt’s CDs, but it’s only because I borrowed it and forgot to give it back. And that’s been since…well, he moved to DC in 2001, so…oh whatever. Point is: that’s not the same thing as out-right stealing.

This is, though:  I stole a pair of sunglasses, once…again, from a friend. Well, sort of. I didn’t like her all that much.  But she was a friend’s friend, which is the same as being so far removed from my Zone of Concern that she might as well have been missing, and…I don’t know, I guess that’s why I took them.

They were beautiful, large, ovalled, with a beige undertone. I still have them, in my car.

But, here’s the kicker: I can’t even wear sunglasses. I never have. I’d have to spend a fortune to because I require prescription glasswear. However, she got a little too tipsy, one evening as we lay out at the beach, and my being bored coupled with my seeing an opportunity to be aggravating, I took them.

Gas Light (1944). Starring Ingrid Bergman. It's also Angela Landsbury's first film role.

I spent the rest of that week gaslighting her. Making her think she was losing her mind, but trust me, she was no Ingrid Bergman.

To be sure, I am not claiming to be a kleptomaniac; I’m far too anxious a person for that hobby. Though I did know a former preacher’s wife who was one.

For years, I thought a kleptomaniac was someone who stuttered.

And I was amazed that she was being called one by the ladies at church. She spoke crisply and well. When one of these ladies’ purses ended up in the backseat of this woman’s car, though, the picture came a little more into focus for me.

Of course, that particular lady of the church was always losing things, come to think of it. Her keys, her patience, her lipstick, her older daughter. And I don’t really think that the former preacher’s wife stole all of those things. She only drove a Toronado, after all.

All I know for certain is that I didn’t steal them, either. Because that’d make eight items.

And I’ve only ever stolen four, like I told you, but – and here’s where you’ll be disappointed – I cannot for the life of me, right now, remember what that fourth thing was.

Hm.

Imagine that…

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U.L. didn’t really believe in that, unless you’d done some really horrendous thing, which I never truly did because God, you know, also rented a room at U.L.’s house, and so it was really hard to get away with much of anything between the two of them. And then there was Jesus. He was always like, Hey, we’ll fix it later. I liked him the most. I hated that he moved out.

Rent's pretty cheap here: one soul for life.

I’m not saying I never got spanked, kids being kids, but I tried really hard to be a good boy. And, for the most part, I was.

I didn’t do anything illegal until I was of age, which then made it not illegal…well, some things. But, I would imagine living in Orlando would challenge anyone’s fealty to the law. I was, until the age of twenty-one, give or take a few years, so picture-perfect that I could have had my own Bible story. It would be a devastatingly, achingly luculent parable about the evils of children who were born a smoke screen. About the shocking shallowness that excessive daydreaming and over-reading of literary classics causes in small boys who are living so many different, confusing lives.

And it would also, in spades I tell you, address the dangers of being quiet, of staying quiet, and of speaking low, when speaking was necessary.

In my family, you see, we fought with the standard Victorian weapons of mass destruction: words and stares.

U.L. could cut you down to size quicker than a bee sting with nothing but the curve of an eyebrow, and Nana could put you in your place with just the ever so subtle shift of her mouth. I won’t even speak of Tigi or GamVa, here. Their powers of reprimand are too potent to even be put on the page.

This is how we loved and fought: tersely and sternly…and yet, genuinely.

We also did not raise our voices. That wasn’t “of class.” So, imagine if you will, fighting fire with a flame, or sometimes half a spark, or better yet, a defective Bic lighter.

Regardless, it’s still eerily effective.

We would rather live together in abject silence until the anger passed over, much like the Angel of Death, except instead of painting my bedroom door with a red slash, I would walk around embarrassed with flushed cheeks at the “crime I had committed,” whatever it may have been.

It never failed to work.

Ah, the Old South: antebellum homes, insane half-Jewish blood, candle factories, magnolias, cattle farms, churches, guilt…oh, and cornbread dressing.

It's our state flower and a sure-fire yard killer.

It’s just about the only South I know.

So, then, with a family this prone to not showing how upset they are about anything on earth, what oh what could I have done to garner a spanking? Two, even?

I’m glad you pretended to ask.

My first offense was, I think in retrospect, worthy of a spanking. I’d been left alone too long in the house, and I’d discovered my mother’s deteriorating vanity, full of old make-up, in a back bedroom. We never went into this part of the house, except when U.L. felt the need to play “The Old Rugged Cross,” or “Whispering Hope,” on the stagy upright that sat against the front parlor window, next to her bedroom.

We couldn’t go in the parlor at night because the curtains were too sheer…music only happened in that house when the sun was out.

I, naturally, went into her bedroom, then, during the day. And in it, there stood this huge vanity, an antique, with an oval, gilded mirror that seemed to float above the dresser. Who wouldn’t be intrigued? I sat down on the soft, rounded bench, covered barely with the remains of a tulle and cotton cushion, and proceeded to open every single drawer.

I collected quite a bit of mascara, lipstick, melted rouge, and broken eyeliner pencils, one that was shamelessly from the 80s and electric blue.

I bet you think I made my lips up, slapped some rouge on my cheeks, outlined my eyelids, extended my lashes. 

But, I didn’t. That small mountain was a later one to climb. No, I, instead, took my loot and crawled onto the ancient sleigh bed in the room there, and began to draw on the quilted bedspread. It was a garish pink a la Tigi, and so I had to concentrate and dig deeply into the fabric for my artwork to be clearly seen.

And the things I drew.

I drew spaceships, and birds, and in one of the corners a rather macabre scene: a hearse, with a small comment bubble wafting above the hood that said simply, “But, he was dead.”

Do you know how much determination it takes to draw on fabric, of any kind? Of course, I was spanked. I was seven.

I’d have spanked myself, had I known what bits of family history I was ruining. (Or adding to).

How I avoided therapy, though, is not surprising: Could you imagine a southern family admitting to the plain fact of having something akin to an idiot savant in their midst, and out in public?  Hardly. I just became a “colorful child, and so imaginative.” I didn’t get to many birthday parties.

This is the very definition of a Merry Un-Birthday.

The second time I was spanked was because I’d convinced a slow cousin of mine to sneak off with me, one afternoon, to the neighbor’s barn to see a litter of new puppies that had been born to the rogue part-Collie/part-Cujo who’d taken up residence there.

I’m not sure if I was spanked then because I’d manipulated a slow cousin or because of the threat of rabies or a combination of the two.

Suffice it to say, I was spanked, a second time. I was eleven.

In between those four years, and up until I turned thirty, I fell into the expected pattern of familial silence, much to their relief. I did my work, I sang in church, I wrote little stories, I read every blame book I came across, I didn’t put any elbows on the table, I said Yes Ma’am and No Sir, and all-in-all became the storybook child everyone wants.

At least on Sundays.

The trouble is, those Sundays just never were quite as good as the stories I read.

Which, I think, says a lot about what I tried to be, then.

But a lot more about whom I’m becoming now.

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On the outside looking in, I had a tragic childhood, I know, I’ve read that…but that’s only the way the story goes. It has a whole different feel, when it’s told. The truth is I had a very conventional upbringing, for the most part, and it included a lot of church.

"On a hill far away..."

I was brought up by a great uncle, who was also the church organist thank you very much. And not just at any church; it was one his father built. His next-door neighbor was his sister with her two daughters, much, much older than I (mostly, anyway) that I merely told everyone were my sisters. And good old Uncle Moon, that was Nana’s husband, Uncle Larry’s brother-in-law.  He worked for the county, drove bulldozers and backhoes to work every day of the week and on the weekends they just sat in the driveway and I got to crawl all over the bulldozer like a retarded ant, and make mud pies in the lift of the backhoe. I secretly had always believed heaven to be made of metal, most of it anyway, and Uncle Moon proved it to me, so of course I loved him with every bone in my body.

He also had no toenails due to some unfortunate accident that involved a cement truck and a visiting evangelist from somewhere down south of Hattiesburg, Ellisville or Lumberton, if people even lived in such places. It was a wonderful story, too, full of a long Sunday dinner, a cursing mynah bird belonging to my great-grandmother Tigi, and a dire need to have a paved driveway. All of which converged on a certain given Lord’s day back in 1978, the result of which were the smoothest-edged toes this side of the Mississippi, and a little to the left of the Tombigbee. 

I envied those toes.

Rumor has it that I was left on a washing machine, at the smart age of two, in my uncle’s utility closet.  Seems I’ve always been in and out of closets, by choice or abandonment. Then again, maybe it was just plain forgetfulness.

It tends to happen.

More likely, I was simply brought to his house and left under his careful and inexhaustible eye, right in front of him, like a drooling bargaining chip. Thank God he kept me. And if I was left anywhere, it was probably either on the kitchen table or at the most dramatic, on the hearth in front of the buck stove. Which I suppose has its dangers.  At least during winter. Wherever I was left, I still managed to grow up, limbs intact.

Until I was eight, my biggest bragging right was that I’d never broken any bones, could eat a stick of butter without taking more than three big breaths, and that I’d never been bitten by a rattlesnake.

I also, at an early age, began a love affair with books. You write it, I’d read it, even Helen Steiner Rice and her bunch of poems. I read with the diligence of a Baptist minister with a Catholic secret.

I read as if everything were sacred, as if I expected to discover some deep and wide truth about, oh, anything and everything from the purpose of grasshoppers to the importance of jelly shoes.

And I read constantly: I read at breakfast, I read in the bathtub, I read on the way to school, I read in my sleep, I even attempted to read during church (and I don’t mean just the Bible, but I had to be about the sneakiest spy in the world to get away with anything else because Uncle Larry played the organ, as you know, and because of this, God had given him one-half of His Own Right Eye.

I’m not sure how that could possibly be considered fair. But, believe me…no one wants to be stared down from the church organ.

This is where the sheaves sit. After they're brought it, so to speak.

Every time a chord swelled, the whole congregation would turn, as one – just like Jesus said the church should do somewhere in Galations, and become one body – and look me square in the face. I like to think Jesus meant become one body by doing good or taking communion or cleaning the church, which some grown-ups I will not say who (initials of M.D. and H.F.S.) wriggled out of every month, but Jesus being Jesus, I was, I guess, happy to help out anyway I could…and so I stared right back, grinning as wide as the pew I sat on.

Naturally, because of my place of importance in the church hierarchy of the children of preachers, deacons, song leaders, and such, PK’s (preacher’s kids) had nothing on me.  I was beyond special because I wasn’t a wanted child, first off, which you can’t shake no matter how hard you try, no matter how good you are to animals and the elderly. So, there was that. And besides Uncle Larry being the organist, John Robert was the song leader (a cousin), Marsha was Director of Vacation Bible School (a sister/cousin; also Vacation Bible School, as you may well know, is the only triple oxymoron in existence); Nana was a Sunday School Teacher; Joey, a deacon…you get the picture.

Plus, Uncle Larry and Nana had been at the church longer than the preacher, so you can see how I was pretty much in charge.

I didn’t take advantage of it, though.  I knew that with having power meant responsibility, or something like that, and responsibility was the last thing I wanted. It’s hard to believe, but there was a time in my life when I didn’t want attention, nor did I want to be within fifty feet of its center. Unlike today, where I’m bound to carry it around in my pocket.

Back in the day, I was happy just sitting on the pew, minding my business, coloring in my He-Man coloring book, until getting caught…but as fate would have it, I was smart. I started to read too early, and learning how to string words together to create ideas piqued my interest, and so I started trying to read the hymns along with the choir, and then I accidentally sang out loud one time on “Because He Lives,” and Miss Ada Lee heard me and told everyone (she should have been a police scanner, honestly) after services, and the next thing I knew, I was on the marquee every Sunday for Special Music.

A solo.

For a long time, I just suffered the fools gladly right through the Tag and the Chorus of every song I had to sing for the glory of God and Uncle Larry.  I spent most of my time singing as if church would be over when I finished, which came across as divine inspiration, I imagine. 

I wanted to be through with church and outside so I could be playing There’s No Ghosts in the Graveyard, a game I think maybe Clay made up or Shannon…maybe Melinda, she was smart, too. It didn’t matter, it was too fun, and we played it constantly, Sunday Best or not, even though, truth be told, it was more of a nighttime game, usually played between Discipleship Training and evening worship.

"When the roll is called up yonder..."

It didn’t matter when you played it, though.  Ghosts plus church was just barely under the Too Evil To Say Near the Church Doors Line, and that could really get your blood going.  

On those days, those halcyon-kid-friendly-ignorant days, church was near about wonderful.  The time I hated church the most was when everyone got chicken pox, and I was the only kid there for what was, without a doubt, almost the length of forever.  But, then, I got them, too, and had to stay home for nearly two weeks, so everything was fine again, and I’d forgiven them all.  I was twice as nice to Bart because, deep down, I figured I’d caught them from him. So, I thanked him by letting him shoot the red birds in our yard without telling Uncle Larry, who, hand to God I guess, knew anyway.

[...]

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Do you hear what I hear?

Now, you may not believe this, but I really do try very hard to be nice, to be kind, to be a friend, to be polite, etc. It’s just that I have a great deal of trouble sometimes in doing anything even remotely nice, or kind, or friendly, or polite, etc.

And sometimes, it’s not even really my fault. It isn’t.

It’s just that I’m, every now and again, a tiny beat behind the music.  I’m not even sure I hear any music, so God bless my poor little drummer. Of course, I don’t hear very well, either, and I know that doesn’t help. And if I don’t have my glasses on, I can’t hear anything, period.

That’s not always the bother of it, though.

Most people don’t really say anything worth hearing, anyway, right. You pass by someone on the street, you ask them how they’re doing, but you do not expect them to actually answer you.

But, sometimes, they do. That’s how I missed lunch today. Me and My Big Mouth, asking how people are doing, feigning interest about your wife’s Mexican cornbread recipe. (Ok, ok, that actually did interest me, but just not at that moment). Invariably, talking about recipes always leads to politics. At that point, I excused myself and went to the bathroom. And then I realized that the bathroom was two halls away from the lounge, and so why go to the bathroom, I thought. Just leave the whole building.

So, I did.

We really don’t expect to engage in conversation when you’re just passing by. I mean, the Holy Covenant of Passer-By Conversation is that there isn’t one. It’s a nod of the head; it’s a Fine, How are you?, the typical blatant lie, and then you keep walking.  And that’s a little odd, isn’t it?  (What a sad commentary on our culture – though I’m guilty of it, myself. I just don’t always like to talk to people, I can’t help it). Now, though, I’m thinking I might spend a day next week, being That Guy.

However, my belief is unchanging: A rote thing shouldn’t be a spoken thing. (That, my friends, is an example of half rhyme. Look for it, look for it).

I much prefer (and greatly enjoy more) the Eavesdrop, or the ED. I love hearing bits and snippets of other conversations. They’re a small bit of amusement in my otherwise routine world: the world of Academia. Though, my ivory tower is more like mortar with a chaser of stucco.

But, it’s worth it, if I keep having ED weeks like this one.

I’ve heard the most wonderful and random things this past week on campus. So, let me share, re-share, or overshare, them again, with you. Oh, and forgive the skewed timeline. Once you set foot in Scooba, well — I don’t have an appropriate analogy to put here. Sorry.

I think one of my favorite, favorite ED’s was Monday afternoon.

Two girls were walking down the hall, and the one in the red shirt turned to the one in the redder shirt and asked, “What do you do with your hair, at night?” This is a classic example of what I’m terming the Downtown Dekalb Barbie Syndrome: same shades of red, same purses, same flip-flops (don’t get me started on flip-flops), same use of a Bump-It, and lots and lots of bracelets.

I'd rather not ask, to be honest.

It’s a shame I’ll never know what her response was. But, I was running a little late. (I like to think she washed it and then ironed it before going to bed. Maybe, also, she let her mother brush it for her…with a Bible).

Day before yesterday, I had to drive to my Comp. class; it’s on the other side of the campus, a.k.a. two buildings down. In the parking lot, a young man (in boots and bona fide Wranglers) was telling his buddy (in camo, John Deere cap included) that this weekend they were “going to the river, so don’t be late and this time bring an extra roll of toilet paper and the good skillet.”

I choose not to imagine the correlation between the two, though I feel pretty sure it’s Downtown Dekalb Barbie Syndrome-free.

This morning, I passed by two adults rehashing some apparent budget meeting in which this comment was made (though I’m not sure to what reference): “And I said, Well, excuse me, I didn’t know you had a copyright on the bow tie.”

I’ve decided that probably the only thing left for me to do is to continue to record these delicious bits of dialogue and turn them into a full-fledged play. It won’t make sense, and that’ll be the point. I think I’ll call it Learning How To Scooba Dive.

See what I did there? I used a pun. (Don’t worry the numbness goes away after a few minutes).

Kidding, aside (like, just put it on the desk, by the scissors), I came back from my Comp. I class, with a different pep in my step, and an untied shoelace which almost created an awkward run-in, literally, with the College Algebra professor who was coming in the door, not looking where she was going. Fortunately, the Coke machine caught my stumble and saved the day. Go Coke.

An A+ paper is just a text away.

I’d, at the last minute, decided to embrace this changing culture, and the evolving language issues specifically (because, I have to be honest, I can’t understand what half of my Comp. I students are saying to me. I do try, though, but what can I say? I have van Gogh’s ear for hearing), and so, I assigned my students’ first writing assignment: a brief mini-narrative “Essay, Yousay, We All Say, Essay.”

The catch is that the entire paper must be written in SMS-Texting code. Straight off the cell phone’s keypad.

I’m intrigued to see what they come up with. They certainly got interested, though. Which kinda scares me a little.

Am I giving in? Giving up? Or, am I cutting edge?

I’ll let you know.

I’m sure blood is to be had, either way. If not for the assignment, in and of itself, or from the random tidbits of ED-ing I do…I’m sure my luck has been pressed…and so…

…first thing on Tuesday, I’m bound to get a papercut.

Just you watch.

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