No one will ever forget where they were eleven years ago and for that reason, I'm not going to do the typical 9/11 post. It's not my intention to make light of it or to disregard the loss of life, but there's nothing I can say that will live up to your own memory of it. And even if I could, it's not my place to transplant your memory of it with some darker more sullen account. So instead I'm providing my B-Side memory. At the very least, you'll get yet another example of why my family and friends are "different."
I turned on the news in my dorm and it took me a minute to process what was going on. Then I read the crawl at the bottom of the screen: "BOMBS FOUND IN FEDERAL BUILDINGS. EXPLOSIONS REPORTED IN DC BUILDINGS." Half of the people in DC work for the government and my family was no exception. I grabbed the phone and my calling card and called my grandmother. No answer. Then I called my mother. No answer. Aunts. Nope. The phone either rang endlessly or went to voicemail.
I started chatting with the people on my AOL Buddy List (remember those?) and apparently I was the only person who could get through to DC at all. Everyone else got the "all circuits busy" message. After five minutes I finally got an answer from my grandmother.
Her: Hello?
Me: ARE YALL ALIVE? IS EVERYTHING OKAY? I SAW THE NEWS!
Her: Yeah, I just came from round the corner to the store. I had to pick up some cigarettes.
Me: Oookay. Is everything okay? Have you heard from my mother and Aunt ____?
Her: Oh well they let all of them out of work early.<My mother> just came by here not too long ago with <my stepfather> on those bicycles of theirs. They said they were going down to Anacostia Park. They'll take any excuse to get outta work. They talking about cooking out later.
Me: ...
Her: I wish I would go all the way down there on some bicycle. Shit.
Me: Well what about <my 9 year old sister>? Is she okay?
Her: I reckon. She still at school.
Me: Are y'all going to get her!?
Her: What for? They said to just leave them in school because they don't want people crowding up the streets.
Me: But the school is right across the street.
Her: Child, she'll be fine until 3 o'clock. If they call me and tell me to get her early, I will. Otherwise I'm leaving her right there.
Me: ...
Her: Call me back later, this old phone is beeping. I think somebody's on the other line.
Me: Wait, I'm trying to get a bus so that I can come home.
Her: Why?
Me: In case something else happens. I'd rather be home.
Her: I don't know what the hell for. If they blow something up, it'll be up here. Ain't nobody thinking about North Carolina.
Me: But all of y'all are up there.
Her: You better keep your behind down there. Them people aint gonna do nothing, but even if they do you'll be the only living person left from our family. You better keep your ass down there so you can get that insurance money (laughs).
Me: ...
Her: Anyway, somebody on the other line. Call me back.
So after that, I went back to instant messenger to announce that my family was alive and completely apathetic. People started asking me to call their parents since I seemed to have the lucky calling card. I called five people before my card ran out of money. Not one person seemed to care.
The general consensus was that whoever did it was doing it to scare "them White people" and that they "know better than to bring that shit over to Southeast." I still went home the next day. I caught a Greyhound from Durham to DC and everyone sat silently as we passed the Pentagon. The streets were deserted and paper was everywhere from people just abandoning their stuff and evacuating downtown.
What did my family do the next morning? We had a cookout for my sister's 10th birthday. An independent news crew came by and asked to interview us. The lady said that she was filming for a French news station. They wanted to get local residents' reactions. She asked if we were having a party as an act of defiance to the terrorists. So badly I wanted to say, "No, they're just being true niggas right now."
Instead I said, "Yes, ma'am. We will not let them win the emotional battle over us."
Tuesday, September 11, 2012
Monday, September 10, 2012
Are You Ready For Some Football?
Yesterday was my first day at my new job as a Redskins fan. It went better than I expected. They won, so that's something. A lot of my friends are baffled. "How could you go from the Cowboys to...that?" It's long story, but to put it simply: I got tired of losing. My entire twenties came and went without me wearing a Cowboys hat or jersey after December. That's just sad. I figure that if I'm gonna lose, at least I can do it with my home team. The better question is how did I become a Cowboys fan in the first place.
I've spent the better portion of my life trying to play catch up. Looking back at my childhood, it's remarkable that I wasn't a social leper. The first time I ever heard Purple Rain was when Prince played the Super Bowl. First time I ever saw Thriller? My senior year of high school which was in 2000! I didn't grow up with a bunch of religious nuts who shunned society. Quite the contrary, I think their sinning was the reason they didn't have time to expose me to stuff that normal kids see early in life.
Up until the seventh grade, I had no idea what the rules of football were. I used to play throwback with the kids in the neighborhood, but that was just all of us standing in a crowd waiting for one kid to throw the ball. One of us caught it and the other kids tried to slam his head into the concrete. Up until I was 12 I actually thought the goal of football was this:
One team kicks the ball to the other. They throw it back and forth to one another as many times as it takes until they get halfway across the field and then one of them tries to kick it through the goal post. Basically, I thought a field goal was a touchdown, and I had no concept of downs.
Don't laugh at me and don't you dare cry for me Argentina. The truth is...there were no male role models around. Nobody in my family was home enough to watch football, let alone explain it to me. I was usually home alone on Sundays so I'd just watch tapes of cartoons or play video games. And no, I never had Tecmo Bowl or Madden. My first football game was NFL '94 and I got that used in 96.
So what does this have to do with becoming a Cowboys fan? Well, I only remember my family watching football together three times before 7th grade: Superbowl XXII and XXVI. That's when the Redskins went. There was one other time that I remember: Super Bowl XXVII. That was January 31, 1993. By some strange happenstance a few family members showed up at our apartment to watch the game. I think it was because Michael Jackson was doing the halftime show. Someone asked me who I was going for, because they wanted to bet. I picked the Cowboys because I liked their colors. That's it. I knew nothing about them. They won, and I got five bucks. The next year they repeated the Super Bowl against the Bills, I stuck with them and they won again.
And that boys and girls is how I became a Cowboys fan...Because there was money in it. Now I've moved on (Now watch, they're gonna win this year just to spite me).
The moral of today's story: Little boys need someone to teach them about sports. You don't even wanna know what I thought about basketball. I'll give you a snippet: I thought free throws were just something you did every few minutes.
I've spent the better portion of my life trying to play catch up. Looking back at my childhood, it's remarkable that I wasn't a social leper. The first time I ever heard Purple Rain was when Prince played the Super Bowl. First time I ever saw Thriller? My senior year of high school which was in 2000! I didn't grow up with a bunch of religious nuts who shunned society. Quite the contrary, I think their sinning was the reason they didn't have time to expose me to stuff that normal kids see early in life.
Up until the seventh grade, I had no idea what the rules of football were. I used to play throwback with the kids in the neighborhood, but that was just all of us standing in a crowd waiting for one kid to throw the ball. One of us caught it and the other kids tried to slam his head into the concrete. Up until I was 12 I actually thought the goal of football was this:
One team kicks the ball to the other. They throw it back and forth to one another as many times as it takes until they get halfway across the field and then one of them tries to kick it through the goal post. Basically, I thought a field goal was a touchdown, and I had no concept of downs.
Don't laugh at me and don't you dare cry for me Argentina. The truth is...there were no male role models around. Nobody in my family was home enough to watch football, let alone explain it to me. I was usually home alone on Sundays so I'd just watch tapes of cartoons or play video games. And no, I never had Tecmo Bowl or Madden. My first football game was NFL '94 and I got that used in 96.
So what does this have to do with becoming a Cowboys fan? Well, I only remember my family watching football together three times before 7th grade: Superbowl XXII and XXVI. That's when the Redskins went. There was one other time that I remember: Super Bowl XXVII. That was January 31, 1993. By some strange happenstance a few family members showed up at our apartment to watch the game. I think it was because Michael Jackson was doing the halftime show. Someone asked me who I was going for, because they wanted to bet. I picked the Cowboys because I liked their colors. That's it. I knew nothing about them. They won, and I got five bucks. The next year they repeated the Super Bowl against the Bills, I stuck with them and they won again.
And that boys and girls is how I became a Cowboys fan...Because there was money in it. Now I've moved on (Now watch, they're gonna win this year just to spite me).
The moral of today's story: Little boys need someone to teach them about sports. You don't even wanna know what I thought about basketball. I'll give you a snippet: I thought free throws were just something you did every few minutes.
Friday, September 7, 2012
Freedom Fighter
I was talking to someone today who gave me a Cliffnotes version of her life story and it answered pretty much all the questions I had about her. To call her outspoken would be one hell of an understatement. She's one of those people, whose outfit just seems incomplete without a machete or a rapier sword or at least a Captain Caveman club that could be used to aid in her quest to change the world. I'm a studier of people. I like to know what makes them tick, which is probably why I prefer biographies over fiction. I find her very intriguing and it made think about myself.
For the longest time I thought that I would become some kind of freedom fighter. Most people have a circuit breaker inside that prevents them from jumping up and saying whatever comes to mind when they get mad. Until maybe five years ago, I didn't have that. Then one day me and three of my friends eased on down the road and The Wiz hooked me up with a filter, a circuit breaker and a calm button. But, I wonder why I changed. Better yet, how did I even get to the "revolutionary" phase in the first place?
I think it started with my third grade teacher. Prior to joining her class I was fairly quiet and timid. I talked about as much as any other little kid, but authority figures scared me. Then I got in her class and things changed. It would take a full orchestra with a spotlight on the string section (mainly the violins) to tell that story in detail. I've tried to write it in the past and it always comes out to about 2000 words. I won't do that to you today. Instead, I'll just summarize.
She was the first teacher to ever tell me I wasn't going to grow up to be shit. She was the first person, period, to break down the math: My mother's age - my age = You were a teenage pregnancy and a mistake. She flat out told me that in front of the whole class, all because she caught me talking while she was teaching. Every other day she'd find a few of us to single out and tell us that we would probably be dead before eighteen. And I was an A student, so go figure.
By the middle of the year I'd developed chronic depression. I started having to see the new in-school counselor twice a week around the time that I tried to stab myself in the chest with a butter knife (I was eight. Leave me alone!). I actually would've repeated her class were it not for some quick thinking on my part. She started giving me F's and D's on everything, but not letting me take the papers home. She said it was my word against her's. So one day I just stole them and bolted out of the class to the office and asked the principal to look at them. I didn't fail a damned thing. When confronted, she told him and my grandmother that she did it to teach me humility. From that point people started to pay attention to my "crazy exaggerations" about the things she was doing.
By that point, I'd lost faith in all adults. They either thought I was making shit up or they told me that because she was tenured they couldn't just fire her. "Just hang in there" was what I kept hearing. Apparently she had agreed to retire once she hit her 30 year mark and locked in her pension. Riiiight. From that day forward, whenever she opened her mouth to say something out of line to me, I cursed her ass out. At first I was still timid and scared inside, so it came out a little shaky. After a while, it became second nature.
"No, I'm not stupid. I'm very smart. You're stupid for thinking that I'm stupid." (Not my best line, but, again, I was eight.) She seemed to enjoy it. "If you can take it, I can dish it!" she said. "Well dish on!" We went at it everyday from that point and I'd like to say that I was better for it, but I wasn't. All those spats did was build up a barrier or a defense mechanism that I'd use for the next 10-15 years of my life. Everytime I felt like someone was about to take advantage of me, put me down or abuse their power...Out sprung Angry Ordale: Freedom fighter to the stars!
Unlike the friend I mentioned earlier, I don't think I had a valid cause to fight. I was just fighting on behalf of the little boy I used to be. When you get knocked down a lot growing up, you learn to lash out (even irrationally) at the slightest thing. You basically start killing mosquitoes with cannon balls. I'm over it now. I moved on, I'm calm and I pretty much seem like a total stranger to the folks who knew me back in the day. But I wonder...with so much experience fighting for one cause or another (made up or real), should I just let it all die? Can I apply it to something? I have sharp tongue, a rapier wit and I'm very empathetic and affable despite my gruff demeanor.
What's the going rate for a retired political mercenary?
For the longest time I thought that I would become some kind of freedom fighter. Most people have a circuit breaker inside that prevents them from jumping up and saying whatever comes to mind when they get mad. Until maybe five years ago, I didn't have that. Then one day me and three of my friends eased on down the road and The Wiz hooked me up with a filter, a circuit breaker and a calm button. But, I wonder why I changed. Better yet, how did I even get to the "revolutionary" phase in the first place?
I think it started with my third grade teacher. Prior to joining her class I was fairly quiet and timid. I talked about as much as any other little kid, but authority figures scared me. Then I got in her class and things changed. It would take a full orchestra with a spotlight on the string section (mainly the violins) to tell that story in detail. I've tried to write it in the past and it always comes out to about 2000 words. I won't do that to you today. Instead, I'll just summarize.
She was the first teacher to ever tell me I wasn't going to grow up to be shit. She was the first person, period, to break down the math: My mother's age - my age = You were a teenage pregnancy and a mistake. She flat out told me that in front of the whole class, all because she caught me talking while she was teaching. Every other day she'd find a few of us to single out and tell us that we would probably be dead before eighteen. And I was an A student, so go figure.
By the middle of the year I'd developed chronic depression. I started having to see the new in-school counselor twice a week around the time that I tried to stab myself in the chest with a butter knife (I was eight. Leave me alone!). I actually would've repeated her class were it not for some quick thinking on my part. She started giving me F's and D's on everything, but not letting me take the papers home. She said it was my word against her's. So one day I just stole them and bolted out of the class to the office and asked the principal to look at them. I didn't fail a damned thing. When confronted, she told him and my grandmother that she did it to teach me humility. From that point people started to pay attention to my "crazy exaggerations" about the things she was doing.
By that point, I'd lost faith in all adults. They either thought I was making shit up or they told me that because she was tenured they couldn't just fire her. "Just hang in there" was what I kept hearing. Apparently she had agreed to retire once she hit her 30 year mark and locked in her pension. Riiiight. From that day forward, whenever she opened her mouth to say something out of line to me, I cursed her ass out. At first I was still timid and scared inside, so it came out a little shaky. After a while, it became second nature.
"No, I'm not stupid. I'm very smart. You're stupid for thinking that I'm stupid." (Not my best line, but, again, I was eight.) She seemed to enjoy it. "If you can take it, I can dish it!" she said. "Well dish on!" We went at it everyday from that point and I'd like to say that I was better for it, but I wasn't. All those spats did was build up a barrier or a defense mechanism that I'd use for the next 10-15 years of my life. Everytime I felt like someone was about to take advantage of me, put me down or abuse their power...Out sprung Angry Ordale: Freedom fighter to the stars!
Unlike the friend I mentioned earlier, I don't think I had a valid cause to fight. I was just fighting on behalf of the little boy I used to be. When you get knocked down a lot growing up, you learn to lash out (even irrationally) at the slightest thing. You basically start killing mosquitoes with cannon balls. I'm over it now. I moved on, I'm calm and I pretty much seem like a total stranger to the folks who knew me back in the day. But I wonder...with so much experience fighting for one cause or another (made up or real), should I just let it all die? Can I apply it to something? I have sharp tongue, a rapier wit and I'm very empathetic and affable despite my gruff demeanor.
What's the going rate for a retired political mercenary?
King Clinton
I didn't get to write this yesterday because the Zquil worked too well, but I just wanna say that it's always a pleasure to see the King Bill Clinton on TV. I would vote him into a third term if it were possible. Perhaps I'm endeared to him because I grew up with him as president from age ten to eighteen.
Growing up in DC, you never knew when you might run into him. I remember going to McDonald's one day only to hear that he'd just been there about thirty minutes earlier. That was back when he used to jog around the city. He always seemed sincere to me. I'd like to think that I'm good at reading people and seeing through bullshit. I met him once. Either he's sincere or he's a Sith Lord when it comes to fronting.
In the eighth grade I wrote a little essay for something called The Smoke-Free Class of 2000. I did it just to get out of doing real schoolwork. I talked about how Joe Camel was a lure to trick me into buying lung cancer. The essay was good enough for my teacher to tell me that I was gonna be on Nickelodeon with President Clinton to talk about that very issue. I already thought I was the shit back then, so that just put my ego in the stratosphere. I went around telling everybody how Bill Clinton asked for me directly and that it was just gonna be me in him sitting on a couch like Arsenio in front of a live studio audience.
Nope.
Apparently I was gonna be one of about fifteen kids, it was gonna be taped and politicians do photo ops like that all the time. No matter, I was still excited. Not even the Guantanamo Bay style security could get me down. They didn't even tell us where we were going. The permission slip just said, "Undisclosed Location." We ended up at some building downtown and, although they said we were getting the lite treatment because we were kids, I had a better experience with security going to visit people in prison.
"Pee now, because if you leave this room we're gonna search you again."
"I can't guarantee that we'll let you back in the room if you leave to use the bathroom."
"We can't tell you when he's coming. It's a matter of national security. No, we can't guarantee you'll be done by the time school let's out. No, you can't call your parents to tell them you may be late."
"POTUS is in the building. From this point forward do not go put your hands into your pockets or behind your back. Don't make any sudden movements and do not advance towards him unless he asks you to."
I really wanted to ask, "Have y'all shot children before, because you seem really comfortable saying these things to us."
So right before my moment of fame and glory arrived, the producer comes up and tells me and another kid that they've cut the number of kids down by two. We wouldn't get to be on camera with him, "But you get an even better job. You get to be an alternate! That means you get to watch!"
Me: "Ooooh Ahhh"
Her: But watch from all the way over there behind those security checkpoints.
So there I sat eating cold pizza and warm Sprite while I watched the other (inferior) children steal my glory. And about two feet away from me stood Secret Service Guy #14 watching my every move (and chew) as if I was gonna go MacGuyver on them and rig together a hand grenade out of a half empty Sprite can and a pizza crust.
When it was over the producer told me and the other kid that we could go up to the set and have a quick Q&A with him and the other (not nearly as cute) kids. Some little bastard dominated the conversation, so I couldn't get a word in. I sat there trying not to show how sad and disappointed I was, and then I heard, "What do you think, Ordale? You haven't had a chance to speak yet."
First off, I didn't get a chance to introduce myself to this man. He read my name tag and got my name right on the first try. That NEVER happens. There are people in my immediate family who still pronounce it wrong. The leader of the free world, William Jefferson Clinton, just said my name and said it correctly! Inside, I was jumping up and down like one of those girls at a Michael Jackson concert. I kept it cool though.
No sooner than I got a sentence out, that little bastard chimed in with his two cents and cut me off. Normally, I would've cursed his ass out, but I was in front of the President, so I ceded the floor. And then..."I'm sorry (insert little bastard's name), but I really wanna let Ordale finish. He's been sitting over there so patiently and you and I have already had a chance to talk for while. Let's let him finish his thought." My mouth was wide open. THANK YOU, BILL CLINTON!!!
It sounds corny, but I honestly got the feeling that he cared about what I had to say. Realistically, there was nothing profound coming out of my mouth. I couldn't influence policy. Hell, it would be five years before I'd be old enough to vote. The cameras had stopped rolling long before I walked up to him. There was nothing in it for him, but for two minutes he sat there and talked to me. It wasn't a one sided thing either. He didn't let me give my spiel and then follow up with an "uh-huh, next person." We actually had a real conversation. Then it was over and he had to go. He put his arm on my shoulder, shook my hand and said "It was really nice to meet you. You take care."
In reality the Secret Service whisked him away, but in my mind...He walked to the nearest window, pulled his cape out of his suit and flew back to the White House.
Growing up in DC, you never knew when you might run into him. I remember going to McDonald's one day only to hear that he'd just been there about thirty minutes earlier. That was back when he used to jog around the city. He always seemed sincere to me. I'd like to think that I'm good at reading people and seeing through bullshit. I met him once. Either he's sincere or he's a Sith Lord when it comes to fronting.
In the eighth grade I wrote a little essay for something called The Smoke-Free Class of 2000. I did it just to get out of doing real schoolwork. I talked about how Joe Camel was a lure to trick me into buying lung cancer. The essay was good enough for my teacher to tell me that I was gonna be on Nickelodeon with President Clinton to talk about that very issue. I already thought I was the shit back then, so that just put my ego in the stratosphere. I went around telling everybody how Bill Clinton asked for me directly and that it was just gonna be me in him sitting on a couch like Arsenio in front of a live studio audience.
Nope.
Apparently I was gonna be one of about fifteen kids, it was gonna be taped and politicians do photo ops like that all the time. No matter, I was still excited. Not even the Guantanamo Bay style security could get me down. They didn't even tell us where we were going. The permission slip just said, "Undisclosed Location." We ended up at some building downtown and, although they said we were getting the lite treatment because we were kids, I had a better experience with security going to visit people in prison.
"Pee now, because if you leave this room we're gonna search you again."
"I can't guarantee that we'll let you back in the room if you leave to use the bathroom."
"We can't tell you when he's coming. It's a matter of national security. No, we can't guarantee you'll be done by the time school let's out. No, you can't call your parents to tell them you may be late."
"POTUS is in the building. From this point forward do not go put your hands into your pockets or behind your back. Don't make any sudden movements and do not advance towards him unless he asks you to."
I really wanted to ask, "Have y'all shot children before, because you seem really comfortable saying these things to us."
So right before my moment of fame and glory arrived, the producer comes up and tells me and another kid that they've cut the number of kids down by two. We wouldn't get to be on camera with him, "But you get an even better job. You get to be an alternate! That means you get to watch!"
Me: "Ooooh Ahhh"
Her: But watch from all the way over there behind those security checkpoints.
So there I sat eating cold pizza and warm Sprite while I watched the other (inferior) children steal my glory. And about two feet away from me stood Secret Service Guy #14 watching my every move (and chew) as if I was gonna go MacGuyver on them and rig together a hand grenade out of a half empty Sprite can and a pizza crust.
When it was over the producer told me and the other kid that we could go up to the set and have a quick Q&A with him and the other (not nearly as cute) kids. Some little bastard dominated the conversation, so I couldn't get a word in. I sat there trying not to show how sad and disappointed I was, and then I heard, "What do you think, Ordale? You haven't had a chance to speak yet."
First off, I didn't get a chance to introduce myself to this man. He read my name tag and got my name right on the first try. That NEVER happens. There are people in my immediate family who still pronounce it wrong. The leader of the free world, William Jefferson Clinton, just said my name and said it correctly! Inside, I was jumping up and down like one of those girls at a Michael Jackson concert. I kept it cool though.
No sooner than I got a sentence out, that little bastard chimed in with his two cents and cut me off. Normally, I would've cursed his ass out, but I was in front of the President, so I ceded the floor. And then..."I'm sorry (insert little bastard's name), but I really wanna let Ordale finish. He's been sitting over there so patiently and you and I have already had a chance to talk for while. Let's let him finish his thought." My mouth was wide open. THANK YOU, BILL CLINTON!!!
It sounds corny, but I honestly got the feeling that he cared about what I had to say. Realistically, there was nothing profound coming out of my mouth. I couldn't influence policy. Hell, it would be five years before I'd be old enough to vote. The cameras had stopped rolling long before I walked up to him. There was nothing in it for him, but for two minutes he sat there and talked to me. It wasn't a one sided thing either. He didn't let me give my spiel and then follow up with an "uh-huh, next person." We actually had a real conversation. Then it was over and he had to go. He put his arm on my shoulder, shook my hand and said "It was really nice to meet you. You take care."
In reality the Secret Service whisked him away, but in my mind...He walked to the nearest window, pulled his cape out of his suit and flew back to the White House.
Thursday, September 6, 2012
Placeholder Post
If you're reading this post then it means one of two things:
A) That new Zquil really worked better than I thought and I didn't get up in time to actually write a blog post.
B) That new Zquil worked too well and someone needs to call an ambulance.
In either case, I'm getting sleep that I deserve. I slept for two hours last night because my daughter is now 98% potty trained and woke up two hours after I fell asleep screaming "Potty!" I'm a heavy sleeper except when it comes to her. A fire truck could run through here and I wouldn't hear it. She goes too long without inhaling in her sleep and I wake up completely.
Once I'm up, I'm up. I can't go back to sleep. So I have been running on two hours sleep all day. The crappy thing is that when I have one of those "didn't sleep" nights, I can't go to sleep the following night at all. I'll just lay there miserable for hours on end. Enter: Nyquil and their new Zquil. Supposedly it's gonna put me to sleep without making my liver metabolize cold medicine too. Here's hoping.
If you're not reading this, then...
A) That new Zquil really worked better than I thought and I didn't get up in time to actually write a blog post.
B) That new Zquil worked too well and someone needs to call an ambulance.
In either case, I'm getting sleep that I deserve. I slept for two hours last night because my daughter is now 98% potty trained and woke up two hours after I fell asleep screaming "Potty!" I'm a heavy sleeper except when it comes to her. A fire truck could run through here and I wouldn't hear it. She goes too long without inhaling in her sleep and I wake up completely.
Once I'm up, I'm up. I can't go back to sleep. So I have been running on two hours sleep all day. The crappy thing is that when I have one of those "didn't sleep" nights, I can't go to sleep the following night at all. I'll just lay there miserable for hours on end. Enter: Nyquil and their new Zquil. Supposedly it's gonna put me to sleep without making my liver metabolize cold medicine too. Here's hoping.
If you're not reading this, then...
Wednesday, September 5, 2012
Home-Lunched
I think I've been living a lie. For as long as I can remember, I've taken comfort in the thought that, when it came to school, I was a good kid. I was never suspended, I never started fights and I never defiled school property. If you pretend that high school didn't happen, I was an A student all of my life and won more awards than anyone else I knew. Back in 1990 parents were lining up around the block at area hospitals trying to return and exchange their kids for a model like me. At least that's what I remember.
Now that I have a kid of my own I've been doing my "overanalyzing" thing. I'm very meticulous when it comes to things and I treat parenting like a business strategy. As we speak (or should I say, as you read) there's a board meeting going on inside my head regarding the school clothes budget for the fiscal year 2013. The image consultant is pleading her case to the boys from Accounting. I'll release the minutes from that meeting at a later date, but the point is that I think a lot about my daughter's future and sometimes I use my own childhood as a reference point.
I always operated under the assumption that I used to be, currently am and will always be awesome, but I'm starting to have some doubts. Actually, I'm starting to think that maybe there are two kinds of bad kids: Future criminals and future politicians. The former is self explanatory, but the latter can be described as those who are highly intelligent, look good on paper and run their mouths way too much, often to their own detriment. Yeah, I think that was me. A lot of examples come to mind, but I'll share one with you:
In third grade my principal called my mother to ask if she was okay with the idea of me going home for lunch. My grandmother lived up the street and was home during the day, so he felt that it would benefit all parties if I no longer ate with the general population. Confused? Let's backtrack for a second.
Everyone ate lunch at the same time and often times that place would get loud. The principal would come in with his megaphone and tell us to quiet down or else he was canceling recess. If we didn't quiet down he'd tell us to immediately stop eating, line up single-file and we had to stand there in silence for the remainder of the lunch period. If this happened during the first five minutes, then we stood there for the next 55 minutes until lunch was over.
I don't know where or how I got a copy of the DCPS school code, but I went to school the next day and convinced people in my class that it was against the law for them to deny us a certain amount of time to eat. I tried to lead a mini sit-in whereby we all would refuse to stop eating and stand up. This, of course, did not go well. It was my first civil rights protest, so we were easily defeated, but deep in my heart I true believed that we would overcome...someday. And that day was gonna be the next day...or so I thought.
The school code said something about not striking children, so when the lunch monitor raised her yard stick at another kid as part of her idle threat to "sit down or else," the little Black Panther in me jumped to his aid to apprise him of his rights. She could not under any circumstance strike him and if she "jacked him up" his mother could press charges for assault and sue the school. "Let her hit you. You gonna own this joint!" My oppressors sent me to the office again.
They tried to silence me and destroy my credibility by punishing everyone else. "Since Ordale can't keep his mouth shut, all of you are going to have to stand up today. Everybody thank Ordale." As everyone started grumbling, my inner union leader came to life: "See! They know I'm telling the truth. That's why they don't wanna let me talk. They can't treat us like this. This is illegal." I'm not sure how much of this was audible to the other kids, as I was saying it while being led back to the office.
By the end of the week I'd threatened to call the board of education for about ten different things, but I think the final straw was when I convinced some people to pretend to be dizzy and complain of thirst so that they'd have to let us outside where there was fresh air or at least let us out of line to go to the water fountain. There was a mole in our camp and I ended up in the office yet again. The principal didn't say two words to me, he just picked up the phone and called my mother at work.
He told her that he'd be sending liability waiver forms home with me and for me to bring them back the next day. My goal was to get us unconditional outdoor recess, but I landed myself an even better deal. Starting that Monday I was to leave the building at noon and not return until 1PM. They made the crossing guard come back for just that hour and she'd just stand there shaking her head in disgust as I crossed the street and walked up the block to my grandmother's house.
Half the time my grandmother wasn't home, so I'd make myself a fried bologna sandwich and some oodles of noodles. Then, I'd play Nintendo for an hour before heading back to finish the rest of my day. This went on from third grade until I graduated sixth grade. I used to think I was a baby MLK or Malcolm X. Now I realize I was more like The Joker...an instrument of chaos.
Now that I have a kid of my own I've been doing my "overanalyzing" thing. I'm very meticulous when it comes to things and I treat parenting like a business strategy. As we speak (or should I say, as you read) there's a board meeting going on inside my head regarding the school clothes budget for the fiscal year 2013. The image consultant is pleading her case to the boys from Accounting. I'll release the minutes from that meeting at a later date, but the point is that I think a lot about my daughter's future and sometimes I use my own childhood as a reference point.
I always operated under the assumption that I used to be, currently am and will always be awesome, but I'm starting to have some doubts. Actually, I'm starting to think that maybe there are two kinds of bad kids: Future criminals and future politicians. The former is self explanatory, but the latter can be described as those who are highly intelligent, look good on paper and run their mouths way too much, often to their own detriment. Yeah, I think that was me. A lot of examples come to mind, but I'll share one with you:
In third grade my principal called my mother to ask if she was okay with the idea of me going home for lunch. My grandmother lived up the street and was home during the day, so he felt that it would benefit all parties if I no longer ate with the general population. Confused? Let's backtrack for a second.
Everyone ate lunch at the same time and often times that place would get loud. The principal would come in with his megaphone and tell us to quiet down or else he was canceling recess. If we didn't quiet down he'd tell us to immediately stop eating, line up single-file and we had to stand there in silence for the remainder of the lunch period. If this happened during the first five minutes, then we stood there for the next 55 minutes until lunch was over.
I don't know where or how I got a copy of the DCPS school code, but I went to school the next day and convinced people in my class that it was against the law for them to deny us a certain amount of time to eat. I tried to lead a mini sit-in whereby we all would refuse to stop eating and stand up. This, of course, did not go well. It was my first civil rights protest, so we were easily defeated, but deep in my heart I true believed that we would overcome...someday. And that day was gonna be the next day...or so I thought.
The school code said something about not striking children, so when the lunch monitor raised her yard stick at another kid as part of her idle threat to "sit down or else," the little Black Panther in me jumped to his aid to apprise him of his rights. She could not under any circumstance strike him and if she "jacked him up" his mother could press charges for assault and sue the school. "Let her hit you. You gonna own this joint!" My oppressors sent me to the office again.
They tried to silence me and destroy my credibility by punishing everyone else. "Since Ordale can't keep his mouth shut, all of you are going to have to stand up today. Everybody thank Ordale." As everyone started grumbling, my inner union leader came to life: "See! They know I'm telling the truth. That's why they don't wanna let me talk. They can't treat us like this. This is illegal." I'm not sure how much of this was audible to the other kids, as I was saying it while being led back to the office.
By the end of the week I'd threatened to call the board of education for about ten different things, but I think the final straw was when I convinced some people to pretend to be dizzy and complain of thirst so that they'd have to let us outside where there was fresh air or at least let us out of line to go to the water fountain. There was a mole in our camp and I ended up in the office yet again. The principal didn't say two words to me, he just picked up the phone and called my mother at work.
He told her that he'd be sending liability waiver forms home with me and for me to bring them back the next day. My goal was to get us unconditional outdoor recess, but I landed myself an even better deal. Starting that Monday I was to leave the building at noon and not return until 1PM. They made the crossing guard come back for just that hour and she'd just stand there shaking her head in disgust as I crossed the street and walked up the block to my grandmother's house.
Half the time my grandmother wasn't home, so I'd make myself a fried bologna sandwich and some oodles of noodles. Then, I'd play Nintendo for an hour before heading back to finish the rest of my day. This went on from third grade until I graduated sixth grade. I used to think I was a baby MLK or Malcolm X. Now I realize I was more like The Joker...an instrument of chaos.
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