My Second Grade Pencil

I know I promised you an Ask The Dad today, yesterday, two days ago, but one e-mail I received--in a misguided attempt at getting real advice--requested a response not from me but from The Mom, and Monday night, when I passed the laptop over to The Mom, she promptly coughed a lung onto it. So that will have to wait a few more days. But as you know, marriage is nothing if not a competition, so that same Monday night, as I looked at my wife drowning in her own phlegm, I said, "Oh yeah? If you think you are suffering, watch this!" and I promptly signed myself up as a chaperone on Kathryn's second grade field trip.

I won.

Actually, ever since Kathryn made the extremely inconsiderate decision of contracting epilepsy (One week seizure free, by the way! Thank you and thank you again for your concern and well-wishes.) her school, fearing an episode away from home, has been pestering me to come along on field trips, and they have not been very gracious accepting my normal response: laughing and hanging up. But that boost of seizures Kathryn had this month made me rethink the issue and, before I knew it, I was calling the school to see if there was room for one more person on the bus. And, god help me, there was.

Second graders should not be allowed to talk about intangible events or objects. Their conversation should be limited to concrete objects that they are holding in their hands at that moment. For example, if someone happens to be holding a pencil, they should be allowed to say, "I have a pencil." If they choose to, they could describe the pencil. "It is yellow. It has an eraser." At this point, others could chime in. "Yes, and it has a silver metal band. The band holds the eraser to the wood." Or, if someone happens to have a pencil of their own, they could produce it and say a few things about it as well. "My pencil is blue," and so on.

Under no circumstances should they be allowed to talk of pencils they have seen, or once had, or heard about from someone else. Because I guarantee you, each and every second grader has seen, or had, or heard about the coolest pencil in the world, and they will not rest--or lower their voice--until their pencil is crowned the champion of all pencils, and award that apparently goes to the student lying the most and yelling the loudest when an adult finally breaks down and asks everyone to please shut up. FOUR FEET LONG WITH SCALES LIKE A SNAKE AND FEATHERS ON TOP THAT REALLY ERASE AND LIGHTS THAT RUN UP AND DOWN THE SIDES AS YOU WRITE AND AN ALARM THAT SOUNDS WHEN YOU MAKE A MISTAKE AND--- and I was looking around for my own 'coolest pencil in the world,' one sharp enough to end my miserable life then and there.

When I got home, I made a sign out of cardboard nailed to a wooden stake reading "BULLSHIT!" If I am ever coerced into attending another of these field trips, I will take it with me and hold it up as needed.

Which will be always.

Comments

[Amy]

Tell those screaming second-graders that if they persist in their competitive ways, one day they will try to one-up their spouse in suffering and will land themselves in a busful of screaming second-graders.

[blue milk]

I laughed and laughed and laughed at this post. Lovely feeling.

[blue milk]

I loved, loved, loved this post.