Okay, most of you are going to say — I win all my arguments with him, I don’t need a refresher course. Sure, that’s what he wants you to think. But I’ve been reading the courses available for men on how to win arguments with women, and I have to tell you ladies, we might be in trouble. Have you ever noticed that even after you win the argument, he goes and does the same thing yet again? Is it because he hates you? Is it because he wants a divorce? NO. It’s because he wasn’t listening when he nodded his head at you; he was just trying to get you to shut up. It means he’s been reading those articles too, and that means Trouble.

We don’t want to lose our edge here, girls. So, for those of you who haven’t quite finessed the art yet, and for those who’ve become complacent over the years, here is a quick refresher course.

It is, of course, best to nip the head-nodding response in the bud. The first time he ever nods his head at you and says, “You know what? You’re right.” Smile at him and say, “I knew it. What do you want to name her?” You’ll have his undivided attention for the rest of your life. If it’s too late for that, and you’ve already married the bastard, then the next time he does it, smile at him and say, “I knew it. I can’t wait to tell your mother.” You will have his undivided attention for at least another two to three years.

Now that you have his attention, argument two should go much more smoothly. Every time he disagrees with you, add a different topic to the conversation. It will confuse him, distract him, and give you the upper hand in a REAL way. E.g.: He says, “I was in my underwear ‘coz I don’t expect people to just walk into the house unannounced. I was happily drinking beer and watching the Braves. How was I to know your mother would come charging in here?” Don’t take the bait — this is his attempt to change the subject. Steel yourself and say: “The Braves? Who cares about the Braves?” NOW, you’re in the lead. He, of course, has to defend the best baseball team in the world. And we all know how to respond to this one, right? You say, “Yes, you’re right, except for the Dallas Cowboys.” While he uses up his energy explaining the subtle differences between football and baseball, all you have to do is bat your eyelashes and wait for him to reach the boiling point of frustration. This is the moment to get back to the real point, “Can’t you at least put on a pair of shorts while you’re guzzling your beer in front of the TV?” — and quickly insert “You know, your mother loves the Cowboys.” Trust me, you’ve won this argument.

And lastly, don’t ever forget, whenever you’re making a point, always add something at the end that insults him a little bit. E.g. “Yes, we are lost. You never admit it when you get lost. If you had really huge balls, you’d admit that we’re lost.” This way, he has to stop and wonder why you don’t already think he has enormous balls, and once men start thinking about that part of their anatomy, they never get back to the argument. You will not only have won the argument, but also have gotten the upper hand in the next three to come.

Francesca Goldston is a writer, living in Atlanta, happily surrounded by three cats and one sweetheart. She is currently writing a murder mystery, which she manages to avoid working on as much as possible by submitting articles and blogging at the web site noted here:
http://www.writingup.com/blog/justthinking

In one day I receive at least 70 emails in my bulk-email folder.
Generally I delete those emails immediately. But I was curious
to know if I were missing some things by just deleting these
emails. I am glad I took a look, because I think my life is
about to change for the better. I saw messages with subject
headers indicating that I won contests, which is amazingly
lucky. Imagine winning five to six contests in one day, yet
having zero recollection of entering any of those. Additionally,
there were numerous messages offering discounts on prescription
drugs, loans, vacations, various products from department
stores, and job opportunities that offer the chance to do next
to nothing, work-wise, yet guarantee a six-figure income. Each
message just asked me to respond to activate their offer
immediately. How could I not? I also noticed emails from sources
stating that they are acting as executors or administrators to
someone’s will or business affairs outside the continental
United States. The reason they chose me was so that they could
have a “trustworthy” U.S. contact to go to the bank, claim to be
a relative or an associate of the business (They clarify that
this isn’t lying or deceptive at all.), and then withdrawal
millions of dollars for them. Sounds like a good deal, right?
All I have to do is give them my bank account number, social
security card number and driver’s license number. They assure me
that they will transfer up to 30 percent of the monies directly
into my account for helping them. With three of these gem offers
in my bulk-email folder now, I am guaranteed to make over $15
million this year just from today’s emails. Yahoo!

I have been trying to find a good job for the past year via
newspapers, websites, job-site boards and so on with no luck.
Yet I have been ignorantly deleting the contents of my
bulk-email folder on an everyday basis. What the hell was I
thinking? This is a gold mine! And this is just one day’s worth
of stuff. Could you imagine how much can be made just by
responding to a few these offers every day? I am no
mathematician capable of building a reliable arithmetic
progression. But if I click on the guaranteed cash-generating
emails that come in daily for about six months, I should wind up
at least as rich as Bill Gates, Mark Cuban, Donald Trump and
several major banking institutions combined by the end of 2006.
Yahoo!

Finally, I am going to be a hammer instead of a nail. I cannot
get over how easy it is to do all this. Folk who refer to their
bulk-mail folders as worthless, junk emails are crazy! But hey,
yesterday I was just as naive as them.

And making money is not the only thing my bulk-email folder is
good for. Did you know that you can expand your social life too?
I also found that there are ladies out there dying to meet me.
It makes sense if you think about it rationally for a moment.
Rich guys always get the ladies. Since smart ladies know that
guys who respond to emails from their bulk-email folder usually
are rich. So they are just trying to hookup with the cream of
the crop.

It is unbelievable how friendly these ladies can be. Some are
offering to have sex with you on the first encounter. If I
didn’t know better, I would think they were lying. But I get too
many of these emails every day that even if only half of the
women are being honest, that gives me about 10 chances a day to
meet someone new. It won’t be long before I will know more women
than I can handle. Many of these women are so friendly that they
want to send me a video. Some even have websites. I guess that
is so you recognize them when you meet. Many of the ladies also
want to introduce their friends to me. Many of them must live in
humid, hot climates, because they talk about things like being
hot, steamy or moist. I am not so sure they are very smart
either. A lot of them don’t know how to spell the word “come”
correctly. But I am not going to be judgmental. It is best to
meet someone first before jumping to conclusions. I know a lot
of smart people, such as engineers, scientist and plumbers, who
do not write well either. Even if it turns out that these women
aren’t that smart, it is okay with me. I can still enjoy their
companionship.

Maybe I should be more discreet about my new discoveries? But
there is no reason not to share this, because with all the
opportunities contained in these bulk-email folders every day,
there is plenty to go around for everyone. I am so happy that I
looked. Yahoo!

It should have been a simple task. Just go to the drugstore and buy a razor. Not even one of those highly complex computerized electric razors you need an advanced degree in electrical engineering to operate, just a plain old manual model with which I could joyfully hack away at my face. It was not to be.

Now, I’m a simple guy. I try to abide by the aptly named ‘Occam’s razor’ principle of science, which basically says that the simpler things are, the better. Now I find myself wondering just how many blades Occam’s razor had.

I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but the evolution of manual razors seems to be roughly following the same path as home stereo equipment. In the fifties, you had a razor with just one blade, just as you had a transistor radio with that one tinny-sounding speaker. Then came the invention of stereo, and the two bladed razor was born. Two speakers and a subwoofer, three blades. Quadrophonic sound, four blades. Now we are up to Dolby 5.1 surround sound and a razor with an incredible five blades on one side and one on the other. That’s right, there are now so many blades on your razor that they can’t even fit them all on the same side.

Where will it end? Is there a theoretical limit on the number of blades one razor can support? I, for one, believe that we are very close to the blade event horizon. Critical mass has almost been reached. It used to be that I would occasionally give myself a slight nick while shaving. One false move now and I’ll be getting tips from Michael Jackson on which nose to buy.

Perhaps the razor companies just don’t understand the concept. Maybe someone needs to tell them that we are just trying to take the hair off of our faces, not make julienne potatoes for a society luncheon while we shower. It’s only a matter of time before someone comes out with a razor that has one blade for every hair follicle on your face, so you can shave with just one stroke and then spend the rest of the morning trying to find your lips.

No more, I say. It’s time to release myself from the tyranny of blades. This morning I gave myself a clean , comfortable shave without using any blades at all.

Now I just need a new string for my weed whacker.

Ian McCarthy is the author of The Science of Wit, a 100 page ebook that contains a proven formula you can use to transform your personality from shy or even boring into the witty and funny person you were meant to be!

Learn more at: www.scienceofwit.com

Copyright The Quipping Queen 2005.

WANTED: SUPERWOMAN/MAN

Or, if you can leap tall piles of filing in a single bound and
save someone’s bacon…you’re hired!

By Theolonius McTavish, a Superman aficionado of sorts, and
an acquaintance of someone called the “Guru of Glitch”,
(who can transform mountains into molehills with the click of
his glass slippers and whoosh of his magic wand if feels really
inspired).

The following advertisement appeared in the local newspaper of a
quaint community known to be the capital of flakes, fruits, and
nuts on the West Coast of Canada.

Title: Superwoman/man (2005-30)

Closes: 10/31/2005

Location: Victoria , BC (Canada)

Length: Permanent FT

Description:

Are you faster than a Pentium 5 computer? Can you leap tall
piles of filing in a single bound? If so, then read
on……PLACEMENT GROUP VICTORIA is now accepting resumes on
behalf of their client, one of the most well known companies in
Victoria and located in the downtown core. This new full-time
permanent position for a SUPER ASSISTANT is a fantastic
opportunity for someone with the following qualities:

-Multi-tasking is a natural ability and you do it with a smile

-You look forward to balancing your cheque book and it actually
does!

-You’re so organized that you don’t know what a “junk drawer” is

-Your sense of humour is understood by many

-Your past employers have often commented on your “old fashioned
work ethic”

-Changing a light bulb, ensuring your boss gets to their board
meeting on time, delivery of that last minute order and
analyzing/editing that monthly report are all common daily
occurences that you don’t think about twice

-You have an eagerness and enthusiasn about you that is
contagious

-You’re proud of your ability to spell…….correctly

-You are able to communicate with all types of individuals

Competitive salary ($30k to $40k) plus excellent benefits
package.

If you believe that you fit this profile, then explain how in
your cover letter that you’ll be submitting along with your
resume.

Requirements: * MUST currently reside in the Greater
Victoria area * MUST have a valid driver’s licence and reliable
vehicle * Excellent knowledge of Windows, Word, Excel,
PowerPoint (testing to be completed) * Hight accurate (testing
to be completed) * Aptitute for numbers * Strong written and
verbal communication skills * Dedicated and loyal individual
looking for a long term commitment * Thirst for learning and
experiencing new and exciting challenges

Mailing Address: Placement Group, 1027 Pandora Ave,
Victoria, BC (Canada)

Needless to say, the Guru of Glitch, sent along the
following short note to express his enthusiasm in seeking such a
challenging position.

Name: Ovid Publius Hadweenzic IV

Title: SUPERMAN - “GURU OF GLITCH” (…although everyone
prefers to call me “GOG” for short)

Availability: Yesterday, (provided of course I can use my
posh powers of persuasion to convince “The Great Pumpkin”
that Halloween comes but once a year, and that I’m needed the
other 364 days to troubleshoot for trolls and tackle titillating
tasks at your esteemed firm).

Background, Experience & Qualifications:

A contrarian (by nature), and a magna cum laude graduate of the
Druid Academy of Computerized Martial Arts & Feng Shui
(by design), my mentor, Master Whatnot, told me that being fleet
of foot I was probably faster than the speed of light on a slow
day and more endurable than a shooting star in a dense black
hole of a cosmically-impaired universe.

As for leaping over tall piles of filing in a single bound, I
prefer eliminating all the easy solutions first …like tossing
the blessed bumpf into the proverbial “File 13″ …after which I
do something infinitely more productive and pleasant, (a
ripsnorting ritual known as “jumping for joy”).

So, rather than bore you with my achievements (such as my
“Grade 2 McLean’s Method of Writing Award), certificates
(my most prized one being, “Communicating With Your Pet
Rock”), handy dandy diplomas (like my rigorous 3-year
program, “Celebrity Pet Grooming & Massage Therapy”),
plus ringing letters of endorsement (from “Mugwumps Anonymous”
and the “Croquet Club of Boring, Maryland”), I think it more
appropriate to summarize my scintillating skill sets:

– A “Master of Multitasking” - having the legs of a centipede,
the neck of a giraffe, and the tentacles of an octopus certainly
helps me navigate my way through the trials and tribulations of
every day life, not to mention perform mundane tasks like fetch
coffee and water plants, or smile sweetly and kick butt if
required in a tight pinch.

– “Balancing acts” come second nature to me and, as a
tried-and-true tightwad treasury officer, I never let rubber
cheques bounce around in bank accounts any more than I would
recommend my boss eat another rubber chicken lunch…even if it
is for a good cause!

– “Junk” - Yuck! I don’t eat “junk”-food, I never open
“junk”-mail, and I have certainly never owned a
“junk”-drawer…but I must admit, I do have one small
shortcomingcoming …the other day I dropped my old clunker off
at a “junk”-yard in order to collect a modest charitable tax
receipt.

– “Old fashioned work ethic” …if by that you mean, do I wear
shoes (as opposed to bare feet to work), a clean shirt (as
opposed to a pizza spattered cotton t-shirt), and whistle while
I work (at my 12-hour day minimum wage job that I’m ever so
pleased to have)? …the answer’s a very simple, sharp and
succinct … “yes”.

– “Changing light bulbs” - no problem, (although I’ve always
found the “perpetual light of the Lord” to be a longer-lasting
solution to wandering around in the dark than using a light
bulb, a propane lamp or a flickering candle).

– Spelling and grammar are a passion with me. (I sleep with a
dictionary and thesaurus under my pillow at night — to keep the
gremlins of grammar at bay, which is probably why I can also
spot at least five typos or spelling errors in your jolly job
description.)

– Ability to “communicate with all types of individuals”, (well
let’s just say that I have the eyes of an owl, ears like a
rabbit, a nose the size of an elephant, and speak Pig-Latin
which allows me to slip unnoticed into petting zoos, board
rooms, and political backrooms. I don’t really want to toot my
horn or namedrop but, one of my nearest and dearest friends is
none other than “Francis the Talking Mule”!)

And since you’re probably wondering about my level of energy,
I’ve been told that my eagerness and enthusiasm for life is akin
to the “boobonic” plague, (or it’s close second cousin, the
pandemic boisterous birdbrain flu. PS: I never use pills — even
the little blue ones!)

A dedicated serial monogamist, I can assure you that loyalty and
commitment are in my veins, (at least that’s what the lady from
Mind’s Eye Hynotherapy told me about my past, present and future
lives.)

Let’s face it, I’m so hungry for learning more about life,
liberty and the pursuit of happiness that I could eat a horse!
And may I also point out that my thirst for new opportunities
and challenges can never be quenched with a Sprite, a Snapple,
or a sip of Shiraz. (Now pint of Guinness …well that’s an
entirely different matter …but never on company time!)

In closing, I just want to say that having a giggling Guru of
Glitch on your management team will not only save your bacon
but also trounce any testy troglodytes or truculent trolls who
are looking for a good time at your expense!

Ciao plus a bit of Ta Ta, Pip Pip and All That

Ovid Publius Hadweenzic IV (aka GOG)

One of the most common human experiences that two or more (depending on how ambitious you are) people can share is love. But, it’s not always easy to tell if you are in like, lust or full blown, forever loving. With that in mind, I’ve created this list of signs that you may be crazy in love!

1. If you’ve ever stared deeply into the eyes of your significant other for more than 10 seconds without cracking up hysterically … you may be in love.

2. If every person in your life tells you that she/he’s no good and you’re mailman, pharmacist and local news station agrees, yet you think they are “just jealous” … you may be in love.

3. Guys: if you’ve taken the pictures of the other women in you’re life off the walls, like the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition posters, Playmate of the month calendar, Monster Truck Rally 2005 … you may be in love.

4. Ladies: men can produce excessive amounts of eye watering, nose burning noxious odor from almost any food or drink, and then aren’t above sharing it with others, especially at night. Knowing all this, and you STILL want to sleep in the same bed with him … you may be in love.

5. If your significant other asks you how they look in their new retro polyester lime green outfit and you say they look hot … you may be in love…. or you have a really strong self preservation instinct.

6. Guys: if you’ve ever given up washing and waxing that new car you just bought to watch “Sleepless in Seattle” with you’re girlfriend/wife for the 20th time … you may be in love.

7. If you always remember every anniversary and birthday of your partner, and you’re not female … you may be in love.

8. If you think the underwear and socks you get for your birthday and Christmas every year is a pleasant surprise … you may be in love.

9. If you thought the Sears Tool Set and rolling cabinet you got for your birthday was great idea, and you’re not male … you may be in love.

10. If you are taken to Burger King for a romantic dinner, and that doesn’t bother you … you may be in love.

11. If you notice your local florist starts arriving at work in a limo since you became a customer … you may be in love

12. If hearing “Honey, wheres my clean underwear?” brings tears of joy to your eyes … you may be in love

But the easiest way to tell if you are in love is this: If there is no one on this planet that you would rather spend everyday of your life with than the one you are with … then you ARE in love!

Jan Michaels is a self-described relationship expert (why is his girlfriend laughing?) that is truly in love. When not writing amusing articles, he doesn’t do much of anything really important, unless feeding the cat counts. You can see more of his musings or various and sundry humorous items at: Free Heaven Or, Articles Heaven

Movies have been made for decades — many of them involve a bomb being deactivated. When I see a scene in which a bomb is deactivated 1-3 seconds before it’s about to explode, I’m not impressed by the script writing. If I ever write a screenplay that includes a scene in which a bomb has to be deactivated, creativity will be my primary objective. In my story, the bomb will have one wire. That wire will be cut and the timer will stop. The timer’s digital display will read no less than sixteen hundred seconds remaining.

My idea lacks suspense, but it contains originality. I’m confident I’ll be able to write some intensity into the remaining 118 minutes of the film. I have ideas for other methods of building an original sequence of events into a script. For your reading enjoyment, I present you with an excerpt of thoughts from my head.

“Major Davenport, permission to speak freely?”

“Can it wait Lieutenant Jefferson? I’m trying to deactivate this bomb.”

“No sir, I don’t believe it can wait, Sir.”

“Very well, Lieutenant, go ahead.”

“Major, Sir, that’s not a bomb. That’s a turkey, Sir.”

“What did you say, Lieutenant?”

“Sir, that’s a turkey, Sir.”

“A turkey? Good Lord, Lieutenant, who would plant a bomb inside a turkey?”

“No, Major, I mean that’s only a turkey. The bomb is over there, next to the device that looks like an alarm clock.”

“Lieutenant, I swear if you’re wrong I’ll have you cleaning toilets until you’re so high from the fumes that you’ll need a parachute to get back down!”

“Sir, I’m quite sure, Major, Sir.”

“Lieutenant, look at this timer! There’s only 100 seconds before this bomb goes off!”

“Sir, that’s not a timer, Sir. That’s a meat thermometer. The internal core temperature is slowly dropping, but I can say with absolute certainty that the turkey won’t explode. With all due respect, Sir, I suggest we call in a bomb disposal unit.”

“I have a better idea, Lieutenant Jefferson. Fire up the Stargate.”

“Sir?”

“You have a hearing problem, Mister?”

“Sir, No, Sir!”

“Then why are you still standing here, Lieutenant?”

“Sir, I’ll go start the dialing sequence immediately!”
Within minutes, Lieutenant Jefferson has the Stargate online and a wormhole open. He calls down to Major Davenport, “Sir, I’ve established a stable connection with an uninhabited planet.”

“Good job, Lieutenant.”
As the Lieutenant watches him, he realizes something has just gone horribly wrong. The Stargate shuts off automatically, and he races down to the Major.

“Major, that was the turkey.”

“What are you saying, Lieutenant?”

“You sent the turkey millions of lightyears from here, but the bomb is still here, and I think it’s about to explode.”

“May God have mercy on our souls.”

The Lieutenant walks over to the bomb, switching the alarm clock to the off position. The timer shuts off. The General suddenly enters the room. “Lieutenant, I was just about to eat the lunch I ordered. The cook says he had it delivered it here from the mess hall. Have you seen a turkey anywhere?”

The Major steps in, “General, the meat thermometer showed that it was undercooked. The Lieutenant and I agreed that sending it to another planet would be the best course of action to keep you safe, and we sent the turkey to where it couldn’t harm anyone.”

“Good work, Major! Lieutenant… Jefferson is it?”

“Sir, Yes, General Stevens!”

“Lieutenant Jefferson, I think I see a promotion coming your way.”

“Sir, thank you, Sir!”

“Lieutenant, why are you sweating?”

“Sir, I was in the immediate vicinity of the turkey, which was about 100 degrees Fahrenheit at the time when we disposed of it, General!”

“I see. Well, why don’t you hit the showers, then you and the Major report to my office in one hour for a debriefing.”

The General walks away, as Major Davenport turns to the Lieutenant, and with a smile on face says, “All’s well that ends well, eh, Lieutenant?”

“Sir, yes, Sir!”

Andy Alt
Mental Dimensions Humor Ezine.
Warped minds can come here for observational humor, comedy editorials, farce, satire and spoof

I made a huge mistake the other day. (Yes, even I, in all my perfection, am capable of making one of these…)

I was surfing around, minding my own business when, all of a sudden, I came upon it. A HUMOR SITE! And let me tell you, it was like when people say they become addicted to cocaine after just one snort?! I couldn’t leave the site.

I’ve been hanging out there ever since, reading everything in site, even the copyright notice and the source code.

I can’t help myself. After that first article that caused me to spray coffee through my nostrils and all over the screen, I was addicted. Now every morning I have to go there and get a fix before I can start my day. My work is suffering. I have thirty two million emails to answer, my websites are falling down in disrepair, and my CEO has already threatened to take away my shares in the company and give them to his dog if I don’t get back to work on our marketing campaign. I tell ya folks, this is bad!

Whoever said laughter is the best medicine never met Dave Barry. Thanks to him and his side-splitting, slobber-all-over-yourself, laugh-till-you-pee-your-pants, style of humor, I now have a hernia. Plus, he tears my face all to pieces!

While reading through the archive of his columns for The Miami Herald, I laughed until the tears began to stream out so badly I couldn’t see. So I accidentally wiped my eyes with piece of toast that was lying on my desk. I got crumbs in my eye and now I can only see half of my computer screen. (the toast had been there for awhile and I think I may have gotten some mold in there as well). As if that wasn’t injury enough, I fell off my chair and sprained my wrist and had to go to the emergency room.

I live in a small town and our hospital is not so big. Neither is the parking lot. Everyone in town visits the hospital on the same day of the week…and this happened to be the day. I drove around the parking lot for forty-five minutes praying that someone would leave so I could park my car.

I was beginning to feel like the Mobro– Islip’s Garbage Barge– when I spotted a MINI Cooper backing out of a space. Hey, it wasn’t my fault that my SUV is triple the size of the MINI Cooper. I thought it would fit. It looked like it would just slide right in. It did, but it made a terrible scraping sound on both sides that set my teeth on edge. (note to myself: call the auto insurance company and see if I paid my premium.)

They rushed me right in to see the doctor, after seventeen hours and twelve minutes in the ER waiting room. He took an xray of my arm and told me to make an appointment to see my family doctor on Monday. Then, he gave me a funny look and said “You really need to do something about that eye too. It looks like it might have molded toast in it.”

Before I take to my sick bed, I just had to take time to warn all of you about the danger out there.

Now, listen very carefully. I am typing this real slow in case some of you can’t read fast: Stay away from www.davebarry.com ! You may not see the danger and some of you may just want to try it “just once” but I’m telling you…don’t take that chance. Otherwise, you could end up a one-eyed laughing jackass with her arm in a sling.

Trust me…Just say NO!

Leeuna Foster is a Marketing Strategist, Author and Poet. She has been writing for two decades and her short fiction and poetry have won several national and regional awards. If you like Southern humor you can visit her website at: http://www.thebarefootchild.com

The downstairs classrooms of my Catholic grade school were each painted a different color. All the walls were the same uneven stucco, a bump here or there calling out to me to run my hand over them. Sometimes in the rush to line up for morning prayers, an overzealous classmate would push me into the wall and a sharp stucco glob would jab me in the arm. The classrooms of the lower grades downstairs were each painted a primary color. The first grade classroom was the garish yellow of yield signs. The second grade room was a flat tomato red, and so on. Upstairs, where the upper grades were located, the walls were painted in soft pastels, the colors of babies rooms long forgotten.

I suppose the point was to stimulate your thoughts in the low grades, and calm you down when you reached adolescence. I was in fourth grade, one year away from that prized, magical transformation everyone thought happened the minute you set foot in the upper floor classrooms. The kids that had been downstairs with us the year earlier were now admired from afar because they became part of the “upper floor.” Last year, we played on the playground with them, sat together during mass, traded brown bag lunch items, gagged together over the snot-like tendencies of the cafeteria’s turkey gravy. But now, now they were the mythical dwellers of the second floor. They seemed surrounded by a glowing aura of maturity. How I longed to be one of them.

This was my second school year at St. Agnes. I was not Catholic, nor was any of my family. But my mother, disgusted with the state of the public system after my former elementary was decorated with used maxi pads, wrote a borderline bad-check for the first year of tuition, and plopped me down into these halls dedicated to Mary, Mother of God. I had cried for two weeks straight upon arriving. My plaid uniform was strange and itchy. I was mesmerized by the single thread of neon green that ran through the otherwise somber grey plaid. All the others kids in this school seemed to start each day with a heartfelt Our Father and Apostle’s Creed. I had no idea what they were talking about. Unaware of my two- grade higher reading level, the nun who was my teacher put me in the slow reader’s corner. This nun, when reading, pronounced the letter “a” sound in a word like “ah”, as in “Jack had ah ball.

At my old school, it was pronounced with a long sound, like “ay.” I burst into tears at my frustration over the two, and my mother was called into school for a meeting. She was called again when the nuns became unhappy about my slanted handwriting and the messy state of my cubbyhole desk. How in the world was I supposed to fit thick spelling, math, handwriting, and religion books into that little desk, anyway? My mother didn’t show for that meeting, sending a note with me instead informing the nuns of the migraine that prevented her from attending. The nuns sort of gave up on me after that.

I was always last in line as the classes queued up for Wednesday and Friday mass. We were required to line up with partners. I was consistently paired up with the only other non-Catholic in the class. Her name was Ling and she was a refugee from Cambodia. The church had taken in her family. When she and her family first came, our school held a clothing drive because Ling’s family had left Cambodia with just the clothes on their backs. Ling did not speak a word of English, and I was sure she was the only one beside me who had no idea who Art was and why he was with Our Father in Heaven.

During my first years at St. Agnes’, girls were required to cover their heads upon entering church. Some girls had lacy mantillas to wear, delicate head-doilies with bobby pins clipping it tight to their head. One girl had an antique mantilla that had been her grandmother’s when she attended St. Agnes. The girl’s name was Roberta, but everyone called her Robbie, the ultimate cool nickname. She was always picked to play Mary during the Christmas play. Her hair was long and cascaded over her shoulders under her head covering. My hair had been that long, until last year when my mother cut it off in her frustration at my lack of hair brushing diligence. My hair was now short, and my mother was always forgetting to give me back the one mantilla I had after she washed it. Sometimes when I forgot, the teacher would let me stay behind in the classroom while the others went to mass.

But my third grade teacher, appropriately named Mrs. Hunn, found it her personal duty to fill up the pews of St. Agnes with as many young minds as possible. Mrs. Hunn was small and dusty, but she was strong through the Lord, she liked to say. The two times I forgot my head covering, she made me use a Kleenex. I had to stand at the front of the class while she unfolded it and tried to make it stay on my head. It kept slipping off, so she doubled up scotch tape and stuck it to the Kleenex, then stuck it to my hair. Once she accidentally put her finger through the Kleenex and made a big hole. So, not only did I have a Kleenex on my head, but the Kleenex had a big hole, which, to me, is not really covering my head, so what’s the point?

The uniforms for St. Agnes were so thick and hard, I longed for the comfort of a burlap sack. In the hot summertime, these uniforms of boiled wool would stand on their own, regardless of having a body inside. Up until fifth grade, girls were required to wear a pinafore jumper skirt, which had a chest flap to cover up the idea of any boob potential. In fifth grade, the pinafore was shed and girls wore just a skirt and blouse. Boob potential became more a reality after fifth grade, so I never did understand the point of taking off the pinafore. The standard issue blue uniform blouses had a rounded collar and were consistently paper- thin. Repeated washings made them even more so, so by the end of the school year, girls were going around practically topless. But, in the name of modesty preservation, girls were required to wear thick white socks pulled to the knee. The only outlet for creativity was shoes. The kids expressed themselves through colored Converse high tops, or Nikes with bright swooshes.

One year, the rage was bright white Nikes with a blazing red stripe. I wanted a pair so bad. I begged for them for three months, and finally my dad took me to the store to get some. But they were sold out. Instead, he bought me a pair of cheap white canvas shoes and a red magic marker, and told me to be creative.

One year, the fashion rage was to put metal taps on the soles of your winter boots. The taps made a delicious clicking sound on the cold, waxed stone floors of St. Agnes, and during lunchtime it sounded like a symphony of percussion ringing through the halls. In our class, Robbie was the first to get taps, and the rest of us quickly followed suit. My dad tried to just stick RC Cola bottle caps into the rubber soles of my shoes, but they kept falling out at the least opportune moments. After much begging and pleading, he finally took my shoes downtown to the shoe store and had them put on real taps.

That was the same year I had Sister Mary Margaret for my homeroom teacher. She was an old nun and still wore a wimple. Sometimes you could see her hair and it was gray and stringy. She looked a lot like the Wicked Witch in the Wizard of Oz. Sister Mary Margaret was not a mean teacher, but you could tell she had been around since the first Pope John Paul. It was always considered lucky to get Sister Mary Margaret for a teacher, though, because Sister Mary Margaret had narcolepsy. She would doze off at the drop of a hat, and would sleep for a good fifteen minutes at a time. The school principal, Sister Catherine Patience, told us that we were to simply continue with our lesson until Sister Mary Margaret wakes up, or, if that were not possible, we were to get out our rosaries and have Robbie the beautiful and perfect lead the class in a round of Hail Marys.

One beautiful spring day, just as Sister Mary Margaret was starting a lesson in prepositions, her head dropped to her desk, and the snoring began. It was her longest nap yet, and the classroom became restless. When it became evident Sister Mary Margaret might be out for a while, kids got up from their desks and milled around, visiting one another. One of the most popular boys in our grade, Matt Thompson, decided to sneak along the floor under Robbie’s desk and get a peek up her uniform skirt. He was under her desk, gesturing wildly to his friends, when Robbie reacted. Her shoe, with its metal tap attached, swung up and caught Matt square on the mouth. The metal tap became lodged in his lip. He was frantically trying to get it dislodged, but Robbie thought he was only being obscene. She screamed and jerked her foot away as hard as she could, taking Matt’s upper lip with it. Blood squirted in a high arc over the room and sprayed a red mist over Sister Mary Margaret’s white wimple. Kids were yelling, Robbie was crying, and Matt lay gasping in a heap on the floor, both hands covering his massacred mouth. Sister Mary Margaret awoke with a start, surveyed the scene of blood and panic laid out before her, and promptly passed out.

For the rest of that school year, the tap and mouth incident was all anyone could talk about. It was rumored that Robbie’s parents threatened to sue Matt’s parents, and then Matt’s parents sued Robbie’s family for medical expenses. I think it would have been a great ending to the story of Matt and Robbie and the tap and the lip if they had grown up and gotten married. What a story to tell the grandkids. But I have no idea what happened to Matt and Robbie, or any one else at St. Agnes’. The following school year, my mother, disgusted with the state of Catholic schools, plopped me right back into the public school system. I never wore a uniform again.

I visited a Catholic school a few years ago when I was looking into schools for my own children. Driven, just like my mother twenty-years ago, by the sad state of the local public school. I was surprised to learn that now only one in ten families there are actually Catholic. No one covered their head during mass. Some people even wore jeans. As I kneeled down, the kneelers were cushioned and thick, unlike my brief Catholic school days when the kneelers were solid wood and extra splintery. The kids were still in uniform, but they wore navy pants and white button down shirts. I laughed to look down and notice their bright colored Converse sneakers. No taps, though. Those were probably outlawed.

It is amazing how the smell of a Catholic church never changes, no matter where you are in the world. The thick smells of incense, wax, and age. I decided to stay for the entire mass. Nothing had changed in all those years. I still looked on while the parishioners filed before me and headed to the altar to receive Holy Communion. I felt both peace and nervousness of being somewhere where I don’t belong. At first I mouthed along during the Apostle’s Creed, and then I realized that I still remembered all the words.

Copyright 2006 Carla Philpot
Editor and Guest Author for:
http://www.respectfully-pattipacifico.com