On Thursday evening, my husband was driving home from his parent’s house. When he got to the entrance of our neighborhood, he found fire trucks, police cars, and evidence of a pretty horrible accident. A medical helicopter waited in the parking lot of a nearby church, and traffic was stopped in both directions of the three lane road that runs in front of our neighborhood. He had to turn around, cut through another neighborhood, and wait to turn into the other entrance to where we live. Before he turned, he could see that the accident involved a motorcycle, and that things weren’t looking too good. He asked another driver near him what had happened, and found out that a car had hit a motorcycle, leaving the biker in pretty bad shape. He, understandably, was a bit freaked out when he got home. We distracted ourselves with television, and pretended to not hear the helicopter fly away.
The next morning, when I took my daughters to camp, we could see the evidence of the accident on the road in front of the entrance. There were spray paint markings all over the place, left by officers who tried to visualize what had happened. Skid marks were in the lanes in both directions, and there were other stains. My husband said it was most likely car oil that had leaked out. One of the stains didn’t look like car oil; it looked like road kill, that unmistakable rust colored smear on asphalt. It was nauseating to see.
We checked the papers and listened to the news to see what had happened, but did not find out anything for the first day after the accident. Other people did find out though, because that afternoon, there was the start of a shrine on the street, spelled out in spray paint. RIP, it said. We love you, it said. And, even more unfortunately, Rest with the angles. Now on top of being nauseated by the road stain and horrified knowing that someone had died at the entrance to my neighborhood, I was also disgusted with myself for being amused by someone’s crappy spelling.
The next morning, a small article was in the paper. It reported that a young man in his twenties had tried to pass a car in the median and was hit by a girl, also in her twenties, who pulled out into the median at the same time. He was flown to the hospital and later died of his injuries, unless he really died right there on the street and they didn’t want us to know that. The article also said that they couldn’t tell if he had been wearing a helmet. What did that mean, anyway? That he didn’t have a helmet on, or that his head was so badly mangled that they couldn’t tell if he had one on or not. He was twenty-three. She was twenty-four. He was more at fault that she was. The median is not a passing lane, but you still have to check and double check to make sure you have the right of way. He was twenty-three. She is twenty-four. She will live with that memory for the rest of her life. He is dead.
In addition to the article in the paper, the street itself told the story. His name spray painted in the road. More declarations of love and loss covered the street. One couple parked their motorcycle near the sign for our neighborhood and stood by the place where their loved one had died. My daughter S commented that neither of the mourners wore helmets.
The next day, Sunday, was Father’s Day. The man’s obituary appeared in the paper that day. More spray paint appeared in the road. I couldn't read it clearly while waiting to leave the neighborhood, and I also couldn’t imagine when these people were finding the time and the road empty enough to graffiti their tribute.
Today the road-side memorial progressed to the brick wall of another neighborhood. Finally some flowers had also appeared on the side of the road. The deceased’s Masonic involvement has been reflected in the street as well, and the symbol is so well done it had to involve a stencil well over four feet long. A giant triangle of red covers both lanes. The pain this person’s friends and family are suffering is abundant.
I am sorry for the death that occurred at the entrance of our neighborhood. He was a young man, and he made some poor choices, and those choices cost him his life. But this was not the Oklahoma City bombing. This was not the destruction of the World Trade Center. What happened to a tasteful cross, a teddy bear, and some artificial flowers? Do we really have to deface an entire street and a nearby brick wall? Isn’t it enough that the police or fire fighters or tow trucks didn’t think to clean the blood off the road? Seeing that smear on the road every time I turn in and out of the neighborhood is a pretty in your face reminder. Do I need to have the visual assault of graffiti as well? Since when did mourning become such a public affair?
It would be nice, however, if the daily additions could stop, because I am getting a little tired of having to discuss it with my children at least twice a day as we leave and return home. My children, who, by the way, have less sympathy than I do. They think very concretely. He didn’t wear a helmet. He did something illegal. He died. Stop messing up the street. I try to explain to them how people are in pain, how they miss him and want to find a way to express their grief. They don’t think they should have to look at all that grief, like his spilled blood, all over the road. They want to call the police. They want to stop the daily spray paint additions to the shrine. I too want it to stop. It makes coming and going from home feel tainted, like we are all to blame just because of where we live.
People die all the time. Can you imagine what the world would look like if we all spelled out our loss, incorrectly, on every spot where death occurred?
Monday, June 21, 2010
Thursday, June 17, 2010
I Won't Do That
It isn’t even technically summer yet, and it is so damn hot. I have been sweating all day, not just since the gym workout. I sweat all over Target. I sweat while baking a cake, and seriously, who bakes a cake in this kind of heat? I sweat over my lunch time salad, and I sweat while putting the clothes in the washing machine. And is the past tense sweat or sweated? And does anyone care? No, not in this kind of heat, they don’t. I took a cold shower, and I wasn’t even horny. And you know what I did afterwards? That’s right, I sweat some more. I even briefly contemplated shaving my head, but then I remembered how good that turned out for Britney Spears, and opted for a pony tail instead.
The worst part of my shower was that for some bizarre reason, I had that Meat Loaf song in my head, “Anything for Love.” So there I was, taking a cold shower, and belting out the three lines I admit to knowing of that song, at the top of my lungs. I don’t know why I had that song stuck in my head; it’s not like I heard it recently, or even like it. But regardless, “I would do anything for love, but I won’t do that.”
Now, I am no big fan of Meat Loaf. Meatloaf, the food, I like just fine. I am partial to the ketchup covered kind rather than the brown gravy kind, and heaven help you if you sneak in hunks of green pepper or shredded cheese, because that is plain wrong. But Meat Loaf the musician, well, I wouldn’t say I care for him. First of all, his name is Meat Loaf. I suppose that is some throw back to the sixties and seventies, when every other band had some bizarre food name. Bread, Cream, Marmalade. In what drunken stupor did Meat Loaf sound like a good name for a musical act? Did it stem from a real place, or was it an eureka moment over dinner at Mom’s? When I was a kid, I thought he was called Meat Loaf because he was overweight, and being overweight myself, I didn’t think it was very funny. He might be fat, but he most certainly did not look like a meat loaf. Then again, he was kind of lumpy and unpleasant to look at, like a real meatloaf, so maybe that’s why it stuck.
Aside from his name and his appearance, his music is also lumpy and unpleasant. He is a big star of the rock ballad genre, which I don’t get nor appreciate. And his songs are more than just rock ballads, they are fucking epics. “Paradise by the Dashboard Light” goes on for over eight minutes. “Bat out of Hell” is a long nine minutes. “Anything for Love,” at over seven minutes, takes longer than most couples actually do anything for love. And is he singing from experience? Who wants to fuck a meatloaf anyway?
I remember those horrible videos of Meat Loaf that MTV would play back when they still played videos. He was all sweaty, not unlike me today, with his stringy hair sticking to his flushed face, his rock star-esque white scarf flung around his neck. He would sing exaggeratedly into what had to be a moist microphone, and the lighting was bad, and the video would never end. And invariably one of his videos would be followed by a Stevie Nicks song, which was almost enough to make me want to turn off the TV and go read a book.
I know anyone familiar with “Anything for Love” has been wondering the same thing I have. What exactly is it he won’t do for love? Not that I lose sleep over it or anything. It’s not like it’s the fucking Lord of the Rings. I don’t really care, but I also don’t think Meat Loaf should have a legacy of being deep and complex over a song that bad. I looked up the lyrics of the song after my shower, while I sweat (sweated) some more. And they are long. T S Eliot “Wasteland” long. Jesus, it’s a crappy ballad, not your opus. But the absolute worst part of the song? It was released in 1993. 1993!!!! I could buy 1973, but 1993??? Nirvana’s “Nevermind” is older than a crappy Meat Loaf song? How wrong is that?
Anyway, I can’t get the damn song out of my head. And I can’t stop sweating. And no, I am not having a hot flash. It’s just hot. Which makes me irritable, I suppose. As irritable as thinking of a Meat Loaf song.
The worst part of my shower was that for some bizarre reason, I had that Meat Loaf song in my head, “Anything for Love.” So there I was, taking a cold shower, and belting out the three lines I admit to knowing of that song, at the top of my lungs. I don’t know why I had that song stuck in my head; it’s not like I heard it recently, or even like it. But regardless, “I would do anything for love, but I won’t do that.”
Now, I am no big fan of Meat Loaf. Meatloaf, the food, I like just fine. I am partial to the ketchup covered kind rather than the brown gravy kind, and heaven help you if you sneak in hunks of green pepper or shredded cheese, because that is plain wrong. But Meat Loaf the musician, well, I wouldn’t say I care for him. First of all, his name is Meat Loaf. I suppose that is some throw back to the sixties and seventies, when every other band had some bizarre food name. Bread, Cream, Marmalade. In what drunken stupor did Meat Loaf sound like a good name for a musical act? Did it stem from a real place, or was it an eureka moment over dinner at Mom’s? When I was a kid, I thought he was called Meat Loaf because he was overweight, and being overweight myself, I didn’t think it was very funny. He might be fat, but he most certainly did not look like a meat loaf. Then again, he was kind of lumpy and unpleasant to look at, like a real meatloaf, so maybe that’s why it stuck.
Aside from his name and his appearance, his music is also lumpy and unpleasant. He is a big star of the rock ballad genre, which I don’t get nor appreciate. And his songs are more than just rock ballads, they are fucking epics. “Paradise by the Dashboard Light” goes on for over eight minutes. “Bat out of Hell” is a long nine minutes. “Anything for Love,” at over seven minutes, takes longer than most couples actually do anything for love. And is he singing from experience? Who wants to fuck a meatloaf anyway?
I remember those horrible videos of Meat Loaf that MTV would play back when they still played videos. He was all sweaty, not unlike me today, with his stringy hair sticking to his flushed face, his rock star-esque white scarf flung around his neck. He would sing exaggeratedly into what had to be a moist microphone, and the lighting was bad, and the video would never end. And invariably one of his videos would be followed by a Stevie Nicks song, which was almost enough to make me want to turn off the TV and go read a book.
I know anyone familiar with “Anything for Love” has been wondering the same thing I have. What exactly is it he won’t do for love? Not that I lose sleep over it or anything. It’s not like it’s the fucking Lord of the Rings. I don’t really care, but I also don’t think Meat Loaf should have a legacy of being deep and complex over a song that bad. I looked up the lyrics of the song after my shower, while I sweat (sweated) some more. And they are long. T S Eliot “Wasteland” long. Jesus, it’s a crappy ballad, not your opus. But the absolute worst part of the song? It was released in 1993. 1993!!!! I could buy 1973, but 1993??? Nirvana’s “Nevermind” is older than a crappy Meat Loaf song? How wrong is that?
Anyway, I can’t get the damn song out of my head. And I can’t stop sweating. And no, I am not having a hot flash. It’s just hot. Which makes me irritable, I suppose. As irritable as thinking of a Meat Loaf song.
Wednesday, June 16, 2010
I Know What You Did Last Summer
Some folks like the mountains. Some folks like the lake. Some are city folk. Some like the quiet of the country. And then there are the beach people.
I am a beach person. I love the feeling of sand sticking to my skin. I love to hear the waves crash on the shore. I love to watch the pelicans fly by in their v formation, and the black-headed seagulls swoop down to steal a stray pretzel or peanut shell. I love to feel the salty water cool off my sun heated skin. I love to watch the clouds roll in on the afternoon breeze. I love the possibility of finding a shark’s tooth or perfect shell left behind by one wave, only to be stolen by the next if your eyes or fingers aren’t fast enough. Most of all, I love the possibility of spotting some creature that doesn’t live on land, and exploiting it for my amusement.
My family and I just got back from our first week at the beach. We usually go to the beach for a couple of weeks every summer, as often as we can score a free stay at my in-law’s condo and my husband can take off the whole week. We load up the back of the SUV, taking our own sheets, towels, snack food, and bottled water, as if we were going to a third world country instead of a beach town with Walmarts a’plenty. Once there, we slather up with gallons of sunscreen and tote our chairs, buckets, shovels, and an umbrella down to a spot on the sand, leaving only for bathroom breaks and a long lunch. We eat dinner out every night, because I deserve some kind of a break on our vacation, and I make it my personal goal to eat a different kind of seafood every night. Every day is pretty much the same as the next, and we only vary the routine if sunburn plagues us.
When we first started taking the kids to the beach, they weren’t so sure about it. I don’t know if it was the vastness of the ocean that concerned them, as compared to, say, the backyard pool or the bathtub, or maybe the loud pounding of waves was too similar to the sound of thunder. E, my older daughter, wouldn’t even put her feet on the sand. She was never one to like being dirty, and sand felt, well, sandy. Both my daughters were scared of the ocean itself, how it was there, then gone, then back again, how it could be calm and peaceful one minute and knock you over the next. But we loved to explore the tidal pools in the early morning or late in the afternoon, when, if we were lucky, we could maybe find tiny little hermit crabs, a sand dollar or two, or even a big whelk, its stomach foot planted firmly in the wet sand. They were simultaneously enthralled and disgusted by what we could find, and while they didn’t want to touch the creatures, they would never tire searching for them.
As they got older, we kept going to the beach, and now they hang out in the water for hours, unless they go ass over teacups in a big wave, or some wildlife gets too close for comfort. When the water gets to be too much, they retreat to the sand, usually settling for making a drip castle near the water, because a good sand castle takes attention to detail and patience, neither of which they have. We like to park our asses in the sand right at the water’s edge and dig with our hands, hoping to find some bivalve mollusks or sand fleas. Sand fleas are hard to catch since they are quick little buggers, but the bivalves are much easier to find and equally fun to watch replant themselves in the sand.
This past week, we did just that after one of the girls got one faceful of sea water too many. E’s friend AJ was staying with us, and the three girls plopped down in the sand and began digging. What began as just another drip castle morphed into an entire community development project. I grabbed a big bucket and shovel and joined them, because digging in the sand alone when you are over forty is odd, but joining the children is good parenting. We found a few sand fleas and a ton of mollusks. E even found, much to her disgust, some kind of long, thin, stringy bright red sand worm, which freaked her out but made the rest of us laugh because we weren't the ones who touched it.
June is a big month in the world of bivalves, and full grown mollusks with this stringy stuff hanging out the backs of their shells were everywhere. I grew up calling these types of bivalves coquina, but whatever they are, they are plentiful and easy to dig up by the handful. AJ sat cross-legged in the sand, and as we dug up the clams, we placed them on her legs. Soon she had dozens of them on her. The more we found, the more we put on AJ’s legs. The next thing you know, all the bivalves are trying to do what they do naturally: rebury themselves. So their little siphons and clammy parts started creeping out in their attempt to dig into AJ’s leg. Obviously, they did not have the skills or wherewithal to understand that a human leg is not, in fact, their home in the sand, so they just sat there pathetically opening and closing, their clam bits touching AJ repeatedly.
“Yuck,” AJ said.
“It looks like they are licking you,” I said.
My daughters and AJ decided to help the coquina out by creating a new home for them, which they called “Mollusk World.” I should point out here that my daughters routinely mispronounce mollusk. Instead of a soft “o” sound, they like to go with a hard “u” sound, so it comes out like “Mule-losk.” I could correct them, but I really like their version better. Anyway, Mollusk World was more than just a pit in the sand. It had a main area, which was a pit in the sand, but it was surrounded by a bunch of other pits. There was the restaurant, complete with little chairs and tables made out of sinking shells, and next to it was a boutique. I asked what they would buy there, but no one answered me.
My favorite part, however, was the hospital. The girls had made a collection of the mollusks with all that stringy stuff hanging out of them. For some reason I told them was how the clams breed, so they decided the shells were pregnant and going to have babies. They were quarantined from the rest of the mollusk community and placed in their own pit, which had been outfitted with oyster shell beds, one for each allegedly breeding bivalve. My daughter S was playing nurse to the shelled creatures, making sure they were moist and content, adjusting them on their individual shells like they were in a delivery ward.
They played with their bivalve victims for a while, until they got too hot from sitting in the sun and had to return once again to the ocean. By the time the girls finished body surfing, the tide had moved even farther out and their entire community was oven baked, dried out like an old seafood buffet. Which reminded us it was time for lunch. We all ate vegetarian.
I am a beach person. I love the feeling of sand sticking to my skin. I love to hear the waves crash on the shore. I love to watch the pelicans fly by in their v formation, and the black-headed seagulls swoop down to steal a stray pretzel or peanut shell. I love to feel the salty water cool off my sun heated skin. I love to watch the clouds roll in on the afternoon breeze. I love the possibility of finding a shark’s tooth or perfect shell left behind by one wave, only to be stolen by the next if your eyes or fingers aren’t fast enough. Most of all, I love the possibility of spotting some creature that doesn’t live on land, and exploiting it for my amusement.
My family and I just got back from our first week at the beach. We usually go to the beach for a couple of weeks every summer, as often as we can score a free stay at my in-law’s condo and my husband can take off the whole week. We load up the back of the SUV, taking our own sheets, towels, snack food, and bottled water, as if we were going to a third world country instead of a beach town with Walmarts a’plenty. Once there, we slather up with gallons of sunscreen and tote our chairs, buckets, shovels, and an umbrella down to a spot on the sand, leaving only for bathroom breaks and a long lunch. We eat dinner out every night, because I deserve some kind of a break on our vacation, and I make it my personal goal to eat a different kind of seafood every night. Every day is pretty much the same as the next, and we only vary the routine if sunburn plagues us.
When we first started taking the kids to the beach, they weren’t so sure about it. I don’t know if it was the vastness of the ocean that concerned them, as compared to, say, the backyard pool or the bathtub, or maybe the loud pounding of waves was too similar to the sound of thunder. E, my older daughter, wouldn’t even put her feet on the sand. She was never one to like being dirty, and sand felt, well, sandy. Both my daughters were scared of the ocean itself, how it was there, then gone, then back again, how it could be calm and peaceful one minute and knock you over the next. But we loved to explore the tidal pools in the early morning or late in the afternoon, when, if we were lucky, we could maybe find tiny little hermit crabs, a sand dollar or two, or even a big whelk, its stomach foot planted firmly in the wet sand. They were simultaneously enthralled and disgusted by what we could find, and while they didn’t want to touch the creatures, they would never tire searching for them.
As they got older, we kept going to the beach, and now they hang out in the water for hours, unless they go ass over teacups in a big wave, or some wildlife gets too close for comfort. When the water gets to be too much, they retreat to the sand, usually settling for making a drip castle near the water, because a good sand castle takes attention to detail and patience, neither of which they have. We like to park our asses in the sand right at the water’s edge and dig with our hands, hoping to find some bivalve mollusks or sand fleas. Sand fleas are hard to catch since they are quick little buggers, but the bivalves are much easier to find and equally fun to watch replant themselves in the sand.
This past week, we did just that after one of the girls got one faceful of sea water too many. E’s friend AJ was staying with us, and the three girls plopped down in the sand and began digging. What began as just another drip castle morphed into an entire community development project. I grabbed a big bucket and shovel and joined them, because digging in the sand alone when you are over forty is odd, but joining the children is good parenting. We found a few sand fleas and a ton of mollusks. E even found, much to her disgust, some kind of long, thin, stringy bright red sand worm, which freaked her out but made the rest of us laugh because we weren't the ones who touched it.
June is a big month in the world of bivalves, and full grown mollusks with this stringy stuff hanging out the backs of their shells were everywhere. I grew up calling these types of bivalves coquina, but whatever they are, they are plentiful and easy to dig up by the handful. AJ sat cross-legged in the sand, and as we dug up the clams, we placed them on her legs. Soon she had dozens of them on her. The more we found, the more we put on AJ’s legs. The next thing you know, all the bivalves are trying to do what they do naturally: rebury themselves. So their little siphons and clammy parts started creeping out in their attempt to dig into AJ’s leg. Obviously, they did not have the skills or wherewithal to understand that a human leg is not, in fact, their home in the sand, so they just sat there pathetically opening and closing, their clam bits touching AJ repeatedly.
“Yuck,” AJ said.
“It looks like they are licking you,” I said.
My daughters and AJ decided to help the coquina out by creating a new home for them, which they called “Mollusk World.” I should point out here that my daughters routinely mispronounce mollusk. Instead of a soft “o” sound, they like to go with a hard “u” sound, so it comes out like “Mule-losk.” I could correct them, but I really like their version better. Anyway, Mollusk World was more than just a pit in the sand. It had a main area, which was a pit in the sand, but it was surrounded by a bunch of other pits. There was the restaurant, complete with little chairs and tables made out of sinking shells, and next to it was a boutique. I asked what they would buy there, but no one answered me.
My favorite part, however, was the hospital. The girls had made a collection of the mollusks with all that stringy stuff hanging out of them. For some reason I told them was how the clams breed, so they decided the shells were pregnant and going to have babies. They were quarantined from the rest of the mollusk community and placed in their own pit, which had been outfitted with oyster shell beds, one for each allegedly breeding bivalve. My daughter S was playing nurse to the shelled creatures, making sure they were moist and content, adjusting them on their individual shells like they were in a delivery ward.
They played with their bivalve victims for a while, until they got too hot from sitting in the sun and had to return once again to the ocean. By the time the girls finished body surfing, the tide had moved even farther out and their entire community was oven baked, dried out like an old seafood buffet. Which reminded us it was time for lunch. We all ate vegetarian.
Friday, June 4, 2010
And The Award Goes To...
Tuesday was Awards Day in my oldest daughter’s class at school, two days before school let out for the summer. I asked E if it was just for the class or if parents could attend. E hates it when I come to her school. She is in fourth grade and getting close to that age when kids prefer to think they spontaneously burst into existence, rather than the truth, that they were excreted out of their mother’s vagina, the very same vessels which received their father’s sperm after he shoved his penis in there and moved it around. No wonder kids are hesitant to associate themselves with people who abuse their bodies in such horrible and embarrassing ways. She told me it was just for the class. I decided to not trust her on that, checked with another mom, and found out that not only could parents attend, they were actually encouraged to do so, by individuals other than their own children. So I went. I left my giant foam finger and air horn at home. I didn’t want to humiliate her.
When I was in elementary school, Awards Day was a school wide event. Only the older students would get awards, with the exception of those younger over-achievers with perfect attendance or straight A’s. And the whole school would sit in the auditorium, bored out of their skulls, waiting to go back to their desks and stinky lunchboxes. But times have changed. First of all, they don’t even have auditoriums in elementary school anymore. But more importantly, the point of recognizing actual achievement has been totally lost in our effort to build up every child’s self-esteem. Seriously, some of these mouth-breathing knuckle-draggers’ greatest achievement was mastering the art of ass wiping. Do we really need to print out a certificate of recognition for that?
With all the bogus undertakings to recognize, Awards Day would have to turn into Awards Week. Instead, the children are now kept in their own classrooms. Who has time to acknowledge every honor and identify every level of participation? So I along with the rest of the parents sat on top of our kids’ desks while their good natured but pregnancy-induced scatterbrained teacher called out the names of the kids and handed them an assortment of hastily prepared certificates of achievement, all bearing the impersonal stamp of a Microsoft Word template.
There were the A honor roll kids, the A-B honor roll kids, the perfect attendance kids, the kids were good in art or music or physical education. Some kids were in the garden club, some in chorus, some in the instrumental percussion group and the student council. Awards were given freely and often. The students even voted on awards for each other, an elementary take on superlative awards in high school. The sweetest, the best citizen, cutest smile, best writer, most artistic, sporty spiciest, best vajayjay,and on and on. Luckily, their teacher was as over all the awards as much as the parents, so she flew through them, barely stopping to pronounce each child’s last name. She even requested we hold all applause until the end. Flash photography was frowned upon. Had the teacher stuck to such a tight schedule all school year, perhaps the kids might have learned the full gamut of the proposed fourth grade syllabus.
My mind began to wander, as it does when I am over- or under-stimulated, so I came up with some pretty special awards on my own. These are, after all, a bunch of nine and ten year olds, on the very edge of puberty. They are a special bunch. And by that, I mean “Special.” One boy seemed to get more awards than any other boy. I remembered him from the Christmas party, at which point I would have voted him “Most Likely in Need of a Shower.” Now, he was in the running for “Most Unfortunate Eyebrows.” There was also another boy who was “Biggest Crybaby,” and the oldest kid in the class, “Most Likely to Advance Because How Many Times Can He Repeat the Fourth Grade, Anyway?” A cute girl was the clear winner of “Give Her a Sandwich.” A girl near her was a shoe-in for “Give the Cute Girl Your Sandwich. Don’t You Think You’ve Had Enough?” There was yet another girl, “Little Miss Stop Texting, You Are the Only Kid with a Phone.” Another girl got the “I’m Sorry You Look So Much Like Your Mother” award. One buck-toothed individual clearly was the best choice for “When Do You Get Your Braces, Anyway?” Another would get the “Just One More Year of Speech Therapy!” prize. Half the boys were tied for “We All Look Alike…How Can You Tell Us Apart?” Except for one boy, who qualified for both “Look at Those Head Handles” and “Stop Staring At Me. You’re Creeping Me Out.”
Before I knew it, all my fun was over, as was the awards ceremony. We couldn’t have any refreshments, as the school has no budget for such luxuries, but we were allowed to take our children home with us, even though it was only 9 a.m. Awards Day was all that was on the schedule for the third to last day of school. All the textbooks had been collected, all the “No Child Left Behind” testing completed. Why the kids went to school at all was a mystery to everyone, especially themselves.
Meanwhile, over at the Montessori school, my other child, S, and her friends had the freedom to create a new game, since they have full days and no time to waste on frivolities like Field Day and Awards Day and How Many Hours Do They Have to Attend to Count as an Actual School Day luau. So in between pruning the classroom plants and scrubbing the desks, they invented The Kick. The Kick was a more violent and clandestine version of tag. Whoever was It was said to have The Kick, and the only way to get rid of it was to kick another classmate in the shins. Then that kid would have The Kick, and so on and so forth until everyone had banana legs.All this had to be done as secretly as possible, lest the teacher catch on to all the kicking and put a stop to it. This is why private school is totally worth the money.
My daughter, E, won six awards, but she miscounted and thought she won seven. The Math Award was not among the six. My other daughter iced her shins when she got home from school. Both of them make me very proud.
When I was in elementary school, Awards Day was a school wide event. Only the older students would get awards, with the exception of those younger over-achievers with perfect attendance or straight A’s. And the whole school would sit in the auditorium, bored out of their skulls, waiting to go back to their desks and stinky lunchboxes. But times have changed. First of all, they don’t even have auditoriums in elementary school anymore. But more importantly, the point of recognizing actual achievement has been totally lost in our effort to build up every child’s self-esteem. Seriously, some of these mouth-breathing knuckle-draggers’ greatest achievement was mastering the art of ass wiping. Do we really need to print out a certificate of recognition for that?
With all the bogus undertakings to recognize, Awards Day would have to turn into Awards Week. Instead, the children are now kept in their own classrooms. Who has time to acknowledge every honor and identify every level of participation? So I along with the rest of the parents sat on top of our kids’ desks while their good natured but pregnancy-induced scatterbrained teacher called out the names of the kids and handed them an assortment of hastily prepared certificates of achievement, all bearing the impersonal stamp of a Microsoft Word template.
There were the A honor roll kids, the A-B honor roll kids, the perfect attendance kids, the kids were good in art or music or physical education. Some kids were in the garden club, some in chorus, some in the instrumental percussion group and the student council. Awards were given freely and often. The students even voted on awards for each other, an elementary take on superlative awards in high school. The sweetest, the best citizen, cutest smile, best writer, most artistic, sporty spiciest, best vajayjay,and on and on. Luckily, their teacher was as over all the awards as much as the parents, so she flew through them, barely stopping to pronounce each child’s last name. She even requested we hold all applause until the end. Flash photography was frowned upon. Had the teacher stuck to such a tight schedule all school year, perhaps the kids might have learned the full gamut of the proposed fourth grade syllabus.
My mind began to wander, as it does when I am over- or under-stimulated, so I came up with some pretty special awards on my own. These are, after all, a bunch of nine and ten year olds, on the very edge of puberty. They are a special bunch. And by that, I mean “Special.” One boy seemed to get more awards than any other boy. I remembered him from the Christmas party, at which point I would have voted him “Most Likely in Need of a Shower.” Now, he was in the running for “Most Unfortunate Eyebrows.” There was also another boy who was “Biggest Crybaby,” and the oldest kid in the class, “Most Likely to Advance Because How Many Times Can He Repeat the Fourth Grade, Anyway?” A cute girl was the clear winner of “Give Her a Sandwich.” A girl near her was a shoe-in for “Give the Cute Girl Your Sandwich. Don’t You Think You’ve Had Enough?” There was yet another girl, “Little Miss Stop Texting, You Are the Only Kid with a Phone.” Another girl got the “I’m Sorry You Look So Much Like Your Mother” award. One buck-toothed individual clearly was the best choice for “When Do You Get Your Braces, Anyway?” Another would get the “Just One More Year of Speech Therapy!” prize. Half the boys were tied for “We All Look Alike…How Can You Tell Us Apart?” Except for one boy, who qualified for both “Look at Those Head Handles” and “Stop Staring At Me. You’re Creeping Me Out.”
Before I knew it, all my fun was over, as was the awards ceremony. We couldn’t have any refreshments, as the school has no budget for such luxuries, but we were allowed to take our children home with us, even though it was only 9 a.m. Awards Day was all that was on the schedule for the third to last day of school. All the textbooks had been collected, all the “No Child Left Behind” testing completed. Why the kids went to school at all was a mystery to everyone, especially themselves.
Meanwhile, over at the Montessori school, my other child, S, and her friends had the freedom to create a new game, since they have full days and no time to waste on frivolities like Field Day and Awards Day and How Many Hours Do They Have to Attend to Count as an Actual School Day luau. So in between pruning the classroom plants and scrubbing the desks, they invented The Kick. The Kick was a more violent and clandestine version of tag. Whoever was It was said to have The Kick, and the only way to get rid of it was to kick another classmate in the shins. Then that kid would have The Kick, and so on and so forth until everyone had banana legs.All this had to be done as secretly as possible, lest the teacher catch on to all the kicking and put a stop to it. This is why private school is totally worth the money.
My daughter, E, won six awards, but she miscounted and thought she won seven. The Math Award was not among the six. My other daughter iced her shins when she got home from school. Both of them make me very proud.
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