Here are some random back-to-school thoughts: 1. Read all the Hobbes, Locke, and Rousseau you want, but the social compact essentially boils down to this: I shall forego my violent, selfish, strong-take-what-they-want ways; I shall settle down, and help you gather crops, and submit to your collective system of justice. I shall do all this, and you shall all pay for a place for me to send my children for a minimum of six hours a day, nine months of the year. Such is the weave of the fabric of our society, tear it at your own peril! 2. The universe remains in perfect balance. The cosmos is in equilibrium. For each proud parent posting a photo of a tiny child going to the first day of school, there is one parent of a teen not posting about how that teen waited until ten at night the day before school starts to announce that special cleats and a calculator that does Serbo-Croatian double-notation (they only sell it on-line) are mandatory needs for tomorrow. That teen is lucky to be alive, but parental love is strong and Amazon promises they can get that calculator here by Thursday. 3. Parents are convinced that school is much, much easier than when they went (the things these kids get away with!). Kids think it is much, much tougher. Somehow, both are right. Wait. No, we had it tougher (back in my day, you had to take the time to ride your bike to the library to plagiarize a report on Copernicus, you damn kids with your internet cut-and-paste!). 4. I may be old fashioned, but I think Hot Topic is not the appropriate place to shop for your kindergarten daughter’s school clothes (maybe for picture day). Miss Manners recommends that your child should have no more than one tongue stud per primary grade completed, and I think that is sound advice. 5. If you are a teacher, thank you more than I can say. If you say something like, “I’m supposed to be teaching them, but I’m the one who’s learning!” please be advised that it is legal to beat you almost to death, for they are kids, and they are stupid, and you are their only non-screen time all day, so make the most of it! 6. I do my best to buy the things on the back-to-school list, but you need to buy your own damn Kleenex and hand sanitizer. This just bothers me, and I have to draw the line some place. Besides, when I was growing up, we all used scratchy brown paper made from recycled barbwire and blackberry bushes, and we shared milk straws, and most of us lived. 7. Do not post about how smart your kid is, it is obnoxious. All of us think our kids are brilliant. Statistically, this cannot be true: someone has to be average! Many someones, in fact. Odds are, it’s your kid. Plus, look at him: sure, he plays the kazoo at a ninth-grade level or whatever you posted, but, right now, he’s wearing no underpants because you said to keep the new school clothes clean until school started, so he was just doing what you said, so those pants need to be washed… 8. If number 7 offended you, sorry. Best you hear it from a friend. 9. For all of my local friends, there’s nothing more to be written about the state flower of Washington, so pick another report topic. We nailed that shit last year! NAILED IT! 10. I’m not going to tell you what our state flower is. Go look it up! You’re on the internet!
Posted on: Wed, 03 Sep 2014 05:21:50 +0000
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