Today’s guest post comes via Mrs. Nostrikethat and the antics of Howling Mad Murdoch. I have to preface this story by pointing out that the little guy attends what some people might call a “Posh” private preschool. It’s the kind of place where the drop-off line is full of Lexus and Mercedes SUVs with stickers on them exorbitantly-priced private high schools. It’s the kind of place, for example, one might send one’s child when one inherits a miniscule sum of money from a distant relative and decides that relative might have wished it go to further an education, instead of going towards boxes o’ wine. It’s all very precious and we are generally pretty amused by the whole scene.
Ever wonder what’s going on in the mind of a middle-school boy? Have a sneaking suspicion the answer is “nothing”? Here’s a guest post from my 12 year old son. He really wanted to let the world know that it’s hard being in middle school. Enjoy!
Dumb other people are dumb
Gosh, the life of a middle school swimmer is hard. I have the absolute delight of going to a middle school that is NOT up to my snobbish standards, and in fact has some people that would punch a small, non-threatening person just for a laugh.
Actually, I would probably do that too. If I could. But I can’t. For two reasons.
Why can’t you beat people up? Huh?
Reason number one: Size.
There are a large number of people at school that are around six feet tall and weigh around 200 pounds. Not even exaggerating. Even the smallest “popular kids” (who beat people up, because that is a good and logical reason for being popular. Teen and preteen social dynamics. Look it up.) are at least 5 foot 6 and weigh well over a hundred pounds. I am just barely five foot, and weigh around 95 pounds. It is all muscle, but still. All someone has to do to beat me up is trip me (thanks to my size 9.5 shoes on my size 8.5 feet) and then sit on me.
Reason number two: I am actually a good boy.
And fashionably dressed, too
I know this sounds weird, but I am generally a good kid. Sure, I have people issues and am occasionally a little on the grumpy side. But still, I feel really bad about me not doing nice things, even when all I am doing is getting a drink from the water fountain while I am supposed to be in the bathroom. Fighting? No. I can’t bring myself to actually do anything because I realize that no matter how much I want to punch somebody, doing it just makes things worse.
It seemed like a simple enough homework problem: given a fixed position of flowers and two known positions of the sun, describe the waggle dance a bee would perform. I mean, bees can manage it, I would think us homo facebookus would be able to manage it, too.
two hours later, we were no closer to the solution. We had tried two dimensional drawings. we had tried three dimensional model layouts. We scaled up the problem to include a cast of actors:
My Lovely Daughter, performing the role of the Waggling Bee
Suckup Dog, performing the role of the flowers because he got some people food for dinner and was both fragrant and immobile
Yours truly, performing as the sun, moving across the sky and eventually out of the house in order to set properly
Eldest Son, in the role of Omniscient Observer Who Is Cranky And Stressed Out That He Can’t Play Minecraft Because He Has To Do This Stupid Bee Assignment And Everyone In The Class Was Going To Get It Right But Him
Mrs. Nostrikethat, representing herself, trying hard not to pee her pants
Even Wikipedia was of no particular help, in large part because the diagram had a Greek letter on it, and I didn’t know what that meant, and because Eldest Son was convinced that whatever I said was stupid.
No, Strike That 