Teachers like to establish in their discussion section that, ""All comments are valued and respected. The classroom is a sanctuary and we aren't going to make fun of the kid who spends 15 minutes talking about that time in third grade when he made a miniature clay pueblo and how it brought him closer to a cultural understanding of the Spanish Conquistadors, and how he thinks blah, blah, blah.""
In a similar fashion I ask, this column is a safety zone where I can divulge embarrassing shit that makes me look foolish, right? We aren't going to judge me for what I'm about to share? No, you are going to judge me? Regardless, I shall bravely forge ahead and self-deprecate myself to pieces.
Taking into consideration the minor detail that I'm an English major, I'm constantly in awe of my impeccably poor communication abilities. I fumble over words like it's my job. Sometimes I go out on a limb and use a noun as a vowel and hope no one notices the difference. I even like to incorrectly use well-known phrases and mix up vocabulary words. You need examples? I thought so.
It was summer 2004 and I was taking in the great Canadian terrain with relatives on a family vacation. No, silly, we weren't backpacking up some mountain or maneuvering our way down a river; we were perusing the local candy shop in the quaint city of Stratford. ""Gummy Worms?"" I proposed to my cousin. ""How about Good & Plenty?"" she replied. ""Yuck, are you crazy?"" I said in return.
After the controversy ended, (I got my way, in case you were wondering), the whole family huddled up to discuss options for later that evening. After exchanging ideas, I said, ""How about we just play it by year?"" Everyone went silent. People exchanged glances while others squinted their eyes at me in confusion. My uncle asked me to repeat what I said. Timidly, ""Play it by year?"" Laughter erupted. Those bastards! My mom, seeing my embarrassment, took one for the team. ""Ya know what? I thought it was ‘play it by year' too. Doesn't year make more sense than ear? She must have picked it up from me. Simple mistake."" No one protects her baby cub like my mom. (Thanks, ma!)
My seventh grade teacher liked to lower the self-esteem of innocent children. It just so happens that in her class I sat next to John, a real jokester. During class, we had to discuss the previous night's reading with our neighbor. BUSTED! Naturally, I asked John to quickly fill me in on the reading I hadn't done because I had been too busy playing ""NBA Jam"" with my brother. Basically, what it boils down to is that John purposely fed me a load of crap—he said ""gauchos"" were the same things as ""canyons."" I didn't know better so I tried to make sense of it in my brain. ""Gaucho kind of sounds like gouge, and a gouge is sort of like a gorge, and a gorge is a canyon, sooo yeah. It adds up.""
My teacher called on me to stand in front of the class and talk about gauchos. ""No sweat, I have this one in the bag,"" I thought to myself. After giving my spiel she glared at me like the principal in Billy Madison who says, ""What you've just said is one of the most insanely idiotic things I've ever heard. At no point in your rambling, incoherent response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it."" (Yay! Second Billy Madison reference within three weeks!)
She asked me to draw gauchos on the chalkboard. I hesitantly proceeded to draw something that sort of resembled the Grand Canyon. She shook her head in disgrace and asked Hannah (the smarty-pants) to draw gauchos next to my ""work of art."" She drew a perfect pair of Western pants and then recited (even though no one asked her to) the definition of gauchos. What a brat. In sum, my feelings on the matter are, ""A simple ‘WRONG' would have done just fine.""
Even now, I'm still f'ing stuff up. Every liberal arts major knows that papers are the perfect time to shine. A time to say, ""I can't really remember 58 percent of what was said in class on this matter, but here is a pile of embellished B.S. you might find convincing."" Last year I got a paper back that I thought I did fairly well on. First, second and third page did not have any marks. Alright, smooth sailing! But then on page four…yikes! In harsh red ink the following was circled: ""Long and behold."" Accompanying the circle was an arrow, the word ""What,"" and about five question marks. Turns out, ""Long and behold"" isn't a phrase; it's ""Lo and behold."" Whoops.
So, I suppose this means with one required English class to go, I should probably switch majors? Or maybe just drop out of school altogether.
