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My mom is in the process of cleaning out the upstairs of her house. This involves giving me boat loads of crap from my past every time she sees me. The other day I became the proud owner of a stack of old papers written by yours truly, the greatest writer ever. Actually, some of it is pretty bad, as you might expect from a 3rd to an 8th grader, but I just came across something that absolutely cracked me up.
I found my stunning epic novel entitled John and the Little People. I wrote it in the third grade and it is bound and fully illustrated -- pretty pimp. The funny thing is that this story perfectly parallels Gulliver's Travels. In fact, I vividly remember plagerizing what I did not know at the time was one of the most well known stories ever told. Why nobody ever called me out on it, I will never know. It's hardly the lesson to teach an 8 year old that blatant copying will go unpunished. My favorite sentence in the whole book:
"He soon found out that he wasn't paralyzed; he was tied down by tiny, strong cords!"
Ha! I used a semi-colon in the 3rd damn grade. Half of you skeezes couldn't do that now.
My report on The Killer Angels from 8th grade was lackluster, to say the least, even though Wenger gave me a 94 ... something I don't recall happening all that often. My poetic skillz back in '91 leave a lot to be desired. I know my pen pal letter to a kid in Columbia was a written assignment, but why I chose to tell him that I watch Hometime every day after school and my favorite episode is the one where they put up tile-backer is beyond me.
The other strange thing is the papers written about my brother, Stephen. There are many. I have one nicely typed biography of him that details his philanthropic misadventures that ends, "The less fortunate and the well-to-do have both benefitted from him, even if I never have." Another paper details how he always has the remote control. One annoying thing he does is taking control of the TV. The first words out of his mouth when we get home are, "I get control!" He then flips though all 99 channels. Of course, we only have less than 60. Then he goes to the B channels. He stops on stuff like church preachers and faith healers. Then we have to watch channel 12B. It is the twenty-four hour fish network. It shows different fish tanks and changes every 15 minutes. We always have to see it change. Then he goes back to A channels to 3. USA has Night Rider on twice in a row after school. That's OK but it takes us 15 minutes to get there. They never should have let me pass 8th grade. I turned this shit in!
I am laughing my ballz off at this stuff. One more description (moreso for my brother than any of you) and then I'm done. The last paper I failed. It was supposed to be a compare/contrast but all I do is slam Stephen throughout it. Because he's 16, he can drive. My parents take advantage of that and make him pick me up from school. He has the loudest, highest pitched, most annoying horn ever. He loves to lay it on when he gets me at the corner. People inside Wilson can hear it. At Christmas, he would play the first seven notes of Jingle Bells. I yell at him every day and then he hits me. I go on to explain that I cannot hit him back since he's driving. Even though most of the time, I remember doing the steering. He thinks he knows everything because he is in the eleventh grade. He always tries to give me advice on things I don't need advice on. I know when next year comes, he is going to want to help me pick classes. Hahaha.
Then I contrast that with how we like the same TV shows, again mentioning Hometime. Then: We like to play baseball in our backyard. We play with a whiffle bat and tennis balls. We have about 120 tennis balls because my mom takes rejects from Plano Tennis Organization or something. We hit them over the neighbors' fence and the husband gets peeved at us. Homerun Derby was always so much fun. My favorite line from the paper is, "I don't like him to think he's all bad because he's taller than me." Who writes like that on an English paper? Well, I mean, I do ... I guess I did all the way through college. Now check out this conclusion: I guess having an older brother with you through life isn't all that bad. I might even miss him when he kicks the bucket. I'll be old by then and probably senile so I won't even know or care, come to think of it.
Shazzam! I hope some of you might have found some amusement in that. I am going to see Stephen on Saturday morning. Sunday is my niece Kaylyn's 1st birthday and she is hosting a kegger. It should be really fun. I got her ultra cute presents. Alright, literature lovers, it is time for me to retire.
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