why weight?

imagine being 14 again.

let's see ... yikes! i was very early in my awkward stage (as that was a period that started when i was 11 and ended ... well, let's just say i've made it to the fringes), i was a freshman in high school, may or may not have had what was left of a perm, and was paying mandy to bring my books to 8th period because she was closer to my locker after 7th.

on second thought, i wasn't paying mandy to do that. she was always borrowing money from me (for drugs or something, i don't know), so that was how she repaid me. a nice little arrangement.

what else? i was no longer in band because i never practiced, and that consistent C (even tho i was first chair, go figure) was bringing me down. also, even with a perm i was cooler than band; however, at 14, i wasn't cooler than chorus. was that the year i had to stand up in front of the whole group and sing with Regional Chorus Val? how embarrassing.

anyway! now that we all remember what it was like to be 14, let's remember what it was like to bring home a report card. sometimes good, sometimes bad. fortunately we always got an A in chorus. math-related subjects were a different story. here's something fun:

arkansas and (soon-to-be) texas not only send home normal your-son-is-failing-world-cultures-because-he-refuses-to-tie-his-shoes-with-square-knots report cards, but they also send home additional your-daughter-is-brilliant-but-come-on-she-really-needs-to-lay-off-the-twinkies report cards.

fabulous!

one texas mother didn't realize that her 12-year-old was one hundred (100!) pounds overweight until the school sent a note home to tell her and until she saw her child's weight printed on her report card ... next to her GPA.

you probably can’t tell just by looking at him that jimmy is failing algebra 2. you might even be one of jimmy’s parents and have no idea until the mark comes home and you have to get out the belt. however, if you were a responsible parent, you’d be fully aware of his progress, and as such might not even need the belt.

regardless of the belt situation, if you were a responsible parent, you’d also know (even if it’s just on a hunch) that he would be healthier if he dropped a few pounds. he is a kid, after all, and not all kids get their clothes from the big and tall stores.

i'm all for health class and gym class (except for when i wanted to take spanish 4 but wasn’t allowed b/c of gym … but it all worked out … i can’t speak spanish anyway) and kicking mcdonald’s and taco bell and pepsi machines out of school cafeterias for the sake of implementing healthy eating programs so that we [adults who are charged with caring for the young folk] are serving something other than grease, lard, and sugar every day.

i'm not so much in favor of having mandatory weigh-ins at report card time. do we really think it’s going to do anything other than lower self-confidence and promote bullying? i think we all want to be healthy and happy and comfortable with our self images, but who’s responsible for achieving and maintaining that? is it the government? for real.

and! who’s going to decide and enforce what everyone should weigh? will this be spilling into the private sector as well, or does the government just want to control the kids? will i be fired one day for not meeting my weight goals despite my exceptional project delivery?

i want to be a governor. i want to ignore stuff like crime rates and unemployment in order to focus my attention on your percentage of body fat. once i have that program in place, i want to make sure another important law is passed: the one that says i can fine you for wearing your pants in such a way that everyone can see your underwear … $50 a pop, baby. where's that belt now?

look who called!

carpe dumb

it was a 9 a.m. meeting on my first day back to work after having attended two days of training. the room was filled to capacity with high-powered managers who really had nothing in particular to say to me (likewise), and i was concentrating on keeping my stomach from growling since i'd managed to hit snooze three too many times.

then my neck started to itch. right at the nape. when i turned to either my right or left, as i feigned paying attention to what everyone was saying, the itching intensified. i rolled my turtleneck down a bit to scratch the affected area and came to a horrifying conclusion.

you can imagine my shock at realizing 20 minutes into a 60-minute meeting that my shirt was on backwards. those were 40 of the longest minutes ever.

talk about unknowingly doing something stupid.

at least i didn't drive a 4-inch nail into my brain and cease to realize it until 6 days later at the dentist.

apparently everyone hears about these things before i do. maybe i need to start keeping a current events journal. regardless, i couldn't just let this one slip by unnoticed.

so there you are at work ... working ... when all of a sudden, and unbeknownst to you, a renegade nail flies into your mouth, through it's roof, and plants itself neatly beside your eye. when you decide ice cream isn't helping the pain, you see a professional.

i don't know what kind of preoccupation would keep me from noticing that. maybe i'm being chased by a pack of ravenous hyenas, maybe denise is telling me that the elton john concert is sold out and we don't have tickets (but we do now ... that was close ... too close), or maybe i'm trying to figure out that worthless printer on the third floor ... yeah, the one that never works and has been kicked more than a few times by more than a few people. all of that requires some serious concentration that might make me oblivious to the fact that i've just jammed a sharp piece of metal into my head.

but seriously, workplace injuries are no laughing matter. one time, i gave myself a nasty paper cut just below the nail of my left thumb. i didn't notice it until i washed my hands and got all kinds of soap in it. and then it kept opening every time i hit the space bar. how i got that one, i'll never know ... but i do pay a lot more attention to the paper products at my desk now. i'm just glad that trauma is behind me.

i told you i was uneducated

i'm going to go out on a limb here and give you my uneducated opinion on a news headline i heard in passing.

the spotsylvania county school board (i know, doesn't it already sound like a joke?) will vote sometime in the near future on repealing the rule that requires children to stand during the recitation of the pledge of allegiance. (now it _really_ sounds like a joke.)

for crying out loud. i feel bad for the pledge. i picture it as the bill sitting on the steps of capitol hill waiting to be passed into law ... you know, he's sitting there all alone with his elbows on his knees looking lost and forlorn. but we've all seen the cartoon and know that it ends with him being passed and getting the big gold presidential seal. what schoolhouse rock never showed us was what happened after the bill was passed. sure, it was a party for a while, but sooner or later, the bill suffered the same fate as the pledge and as a result they go to the bar every friday to vent about it. denise and i see them sometimes. they buy us drinks.

first, the atheists wanted to get rid of "under god," and i'm sure they're still fighting. those arguments never stop, and frankly, it's making the treasury department a little touchy. maybe it would just be easier for the atheists who (and here's more of my uneducation) are probably outnumbered to not say those words when they're pledging their allegiance. maybe they could just take a split-second breather and use that time to get over being sensitive to a prepositional phrase. or if they don't like that, they could replace the word "god" with something they do believe in.

it can't be anything ethereal that requires faith or the like ... how about "the ozone layer" ... but, no, that's are pretty intangible. i mean, how do we know for sure that it exists? and if we don't know that ... how could it possibly have a hole in it. that's preposterous. we're going to have to go with "orion." the greeks saw him. or maybe it was the romans. and i can see him. so he must exist. problem solved. money saved.

now, spotsylvanians don't want to stand. alright, that might be a little general. i haven't personally interviewed all of the spotsylvanians, so for the sake of uneducated specificity i'll just say that some spotsylvanian brat refuses to stand up during the pledge and instead of parenting him, his parents are bothering the government about it. sounds harsh, but it's the american way. besides, if i wanted to find out about spotsylvanian standing customs, i'd go to one of their wal-marts and see how many people are unnecessarily driving those little carts. i don't have the time or patience for that.

maybe what we should do is tell the parents to take a running jump and then ensure the child is attending his history, civics, and/or social studies classes rather than hanging out at mcdonald's. mcdonad's isn't going to teach him about patriotism and integrity. apparently neither are his parents. if my school had called my parents to tell them that i was refusing to stand up during the pledge, i'm guessing i'd show up to school the next day with no choice but to stand. for the whole day. (hi mom!) maybe mom should make a trip to spotsylvania.

ok, i just read the article. all the kid wants to do is sit quietly and respectfully ... but i think we all know he's just copying someone's homework.