Exhibit 27.11

They Must Be Stopped

Yesterday I observed a 3rd grade classroom and came to this realization: 3rd graders terrify me. They're too smart and open and they're coming for us all. At every question they'd raise their hands, even when they didn't have an answer (especially when they didn't have an answer for some of them). Many had aluminum water bottles on their desks that they'd brought from home. Even I can't do this. My coffee travel mug--already a less healthy container--spends days in my car before I remember to bring it in. When asked to write poems, they couldn't help but be surrealists. One kid started listing off the Greek gods he knew while he scribbled sentences about the ocean. It was picture day, so they all looked like tiny lawyers. The Scholastic book orders I saw fulfilled were all about werewolves and war and o god they're short enough to hide below our knees.

Their dependence on the pencil sharpener is the only thing that might do them in.

And I contrast this to what I remember about the 3rd grade and can't help but think of all the ridiculous things I must spoken about seriously and how shocking it is that nobody took the time to kick me. The only Greek gods I knew had given their names to cars. The only thing I drank was all the cola. On picture day, I only parted my bowl cut more precisely down the center of my head.

Already I'm pretending that things being worse was better because while there were bowl cuts, there were not these precocious mysteries. But if you asked if this fear is how nostalgia begins, I wouldn't raise my hand to give you an answer.

Exhibit 26.4

Saratoga Springs Has


this. The only thing cuter than a toddler playing with ducks is me playing with ducks.

Exhibit 25.7

Kids

I live by a park where I walk Brett and since the weather here got nice--by which I mean terrible--there have been a lot of kids doing kid things to the endless soundtrack of ice cream truck melodies. Usually it's just riding bikes or playing soccer, but today there were boys doing both of those things and yelling insults at each other. I can understand this and was maybe even a little impressed by their multi-tasking.

What I cannot understand is this exchange I heard between two who were maybe 11 or 12.

Kid 1: You're a pedophile, Josh.
Josh: O yeah, well you need love to grow.

Kid 1's comment, while an odd thing to say to a fellow child, at least made sense given the context of bikes/soccer/insults. Josh, however, went way off book and won the day by giving us all something to think about.

Exhibit 18.6

This morning there was some graffiti in my office's parking garage stairwell. It said something like "Smoking Nugs/Shooting Pigs," and there was a woman from a different office reading it when I came down the stairs.

Woman: That's just horrible.
Me: (stops to read) What's a nug?
Woman: I know what a pig is and that's sick.
Me: Do you think it means smoking like cigarettes or smoking like killing?
Woman: My niece's husband Larry is a cop.
Me: I'd think drugs, right, but since the next line is about killing cops maybe smoking here means smoking like killing. Like, could it have the same meaning if it said 'smoking nugs and cops'?
Woman:
Me: But it's pretty specific about the shooting, too. You know, I think it must mean smoking like cigarettes. But now we're back to nugs.
Woman: Poor Larry.
Me: Hey, I bet Larry would know what 'nugs' are! Let's ask him.
Woman: We should ride up on separate elevators.

Clearly I should have just talked to L. Kent.

Anyway, thank god I didn't catch the kids while they were doing this.

Me: Hey, what are nugs?
Kids: Back off before we smoke you.
Me: Now when you say smoke...
Kids:
Me: Let's ask Larry!
Kids: This imaginary conversation is not chronologically consistent with your previous imaginary conversation.

Damn kids.