Wiseacre

Today a friend of mine was telling me comical stories from my old workplace about computer woes and the fits of rage that follow. And it reminded me of one of my favorite stories of all time, the first time I can remember laughing until I cried.

I was sitting in seventh-grade algebra class, and our teacher was handing back tests. One of my classmates was Pat Boyle, a pale boy who tried very hard to be the brooding, artistic type. Well, when Pat got his test back, he looked down at his grade and exploded. And I mean EXPLODED. He leaped out of his desk and tore his test in two. Threw his head back and howled "goddamn shit fuck" or something like that. Grabbed his desk and shoved it across the room. Threw a book. Kicked a chair. It went ON and ON and ON, while all of us, including the teacher, sat there watching, too stunned to even react. Finally, Pat slumps down in a chair, chest heaving, and stares down at the floor. And the awkward silence wasn't broken until my friend John Fritz leans over and asks cheerfully, "So, Pat, how'd you do?"

I fell in love with John Fritz immediately, a love that lasted well into high school. And I am fairly certain that today he must work in a newsroom.

Happy birthday to me

In honor of the big three-two, my top childhood birthday memories:

1980, Age 4 - I'm on a huge Smurfs kick, so mom tells me she's going to order a Smurfette cake for my birthday party. Only she must not have spent a year of Saturday mornings with her butt planted two feet from the TV screen like I did. At the party, she gathers all the kids around the cake box and proudly lifts the lid. I gasp in horror. "Mom, what IS that?!" She looks puzzled. "What do you mean? THAT'S Smurfette!" Um, no, mom. ALL smurfs are blue. Not pink. Not even girl smurfs.

1982, Age 6 - While sitting in my desk doing schoolwork on a warm, sunny afternoon, I hear a faint thumping sound of music in the hallway. The music got louder as it grew closer, and then all of a sudden, Miss Piggy appears in the doorway of our classroom. THE Miss Piggy, with bouncing blonde curls, a boombox on her shoulder, and a clump of brightly colored balloons. She walks up to me, and I nearly wet my pants. First she leads the class in singing "Happy Birthday" to me, and then she produces a box of chocolates, which I get to hand out to all my classmates. As I walk home from school proudly holding my balloons, I see my mom, who surprised me by meeting me halfway down the block. I am so overcome with happiness that as I run toward her, I burst into tears.

1986, Age 10 - In the middle of the night I am awakened by rustling noises in my bedroom, along with some "shits" and "goddamns." I lift my head up and see two figures huddled at the foot of my bed. It's mom and dad, trying to set up my a new stereo so that I'll be surprised when I wake up the next morning. I pretend to go back to sleep, but I'm too excited and my heart is pounding. I listened to the whole thing. The next day I unwrap my first two cassette tapes: Janet Jackson's "Control" and Johnny Cash's "Man in Black," both of which I had specifically requested. Within a week, I had memorized every single word of "Nasty" and "A Boy Named Sue." That's right, folks - even back THEN I was this cool.

Kickoff

It's Friday night, after 10 p.m., and I'm still at work. But don't feel bad for me! Because this is the most exciting time of the year. Better than Christmas, even. It's high school football season, baby! I LIVE FOR THIS.

OK, so maybe this being my seventh season of high school football, I'm not actually as gung-ho as all that. But it IS pretty much the most exciting time of the year when you have my job. When some people hear that I work in a sports department at a newspaper, they get all starry-eyed and ask "Oh! So do you get to go to all the games?!!" Ah, no. Actually, all those guys out there tonight, walking the sidelines with a notebook and pencil? They will go back to their computers in a little bit and write stories. Then they will send those stories to newsrooms that contain folks like me, who read the stories, write some headlines, and then poof! You have a newspaper. It really is just that simple.

But the real thrilling part isn't even those stories -- it's the phones. I have to write this post sorta fast, because in about 15 minutes or so, the four public lines in my department are going to light up my phone like a Christmas tree. And I have a small team of folks in the room with me right now who are going to pick up those phones, talk to a bunch of coaches, take game statistics and type them into the computer. Then I'll gather up all that info and smash it into a "roundup" that will contain information on a bunch of games. Maybe it'll be five games. Or maybe 10. OR MAYBE 25 GAMES! WHO CAN TELL?!?! It gets very chaotic, because it is impossible to predict how many calls and results you'll get. And what you WON'T get, meaning you have to scramble to find it yourself. And we'll have to accomplish all of this in the span of about an hour, which is how much time we have before our first deadline.

It is during this hour of an autumn Friday night, an hour that happens just 11 times per year, that I actually look like those journalists you see on TV and in movies. My colleagues and I actually look, you know, COOL. Fingers flying over the keyboard ... phones ringing and slamming, ringing and slamming ... hollering out scores to each other ... running laps around the room to see what games we're getting ... sweat on the brow and a hard-thumping heartbeat. It is pure, exhilarating chaos.

My attitude about it today is a far cry from that of my very first football Friday night, back in 2000, when I worked at The Bakersfield Californian and was one of those clerks spending that hour being trampled by ringing phones. I literally knew nothing about football, and I had this paralyzing fear that all my new coworkers would sit there listening to me sound like a total dumbass with these coaches. And they would probably send each other secret e-mails mocking me behind my back. "Can you believe she didn't even know what a two-point conversion is?! What a dumbass!" It was the only time in my life I was so nervous that I actually barfed, in a bathroom stall an hour before my shift started. So every year on this night, I feel so grateful that nothing about football, not first downs or fumble returns or quarterback keepers, makes me want to toss my cookies. Well, except for Michael Vick, but I don't have time to go into that right now, because the phone just rang! Gotta go! Woooohoooooooo!

Child star

My last post reminded me of something I hadn't thought about in ages. When I was a little kid, maybe second or third grade, we put on an anti-drug play at our school. Part of the program was this "Just Say No" rap. There were eight kids in the rap, and we were split into two groups that stood on the stage behind two microphones. Each pair of kids took turns rapping to each other, and then you'd go to the back of the line and the next two rappers would come up.

At first I was super-nervous because I was paired with this boy named Tamon who was freakishly tall (though now that I think about it, what IS "freakishly tall" when you are a second-grader? 5-1?) but I had a crush on him anyway, and I was afraid he would think I was a bad rapper. But then at the last minute they switched me so that I was rapping with a girl, which I thought kind of sucked. I also remember that I wore my best sunday school dress the day of the performance, which doesn't seem very rappy at all.

Anyway, I can remember some of the lyrics. This was my part, which I had to rap into the pinky-and-thumb-extended hand "phone" held up to my face:

"Hey, Pam! Yo! This is Sue!
I got some pretty hot news for you!
Did you hear what happened at the prom last night?
Some kids, they got into an awful fight!
I heard they were drinking, and using drugs,"
(And then something that rhymes with drugs)
(And then something else I can't remember)
"I guess they didn't know that you can JUST! SAY! NO!"

That last part, the JUST! SAY! NO!, we were all supposed to yell really loud. Also, you were supposed to get into the rap physically, by snapping your fingers or swinging your hips. Way cool. But seriously, what is that missing part? What the hell rhymes with "drugs" that could possibly make sense here? I guess I could think of some possibilities for the missing lyrics, though very few of them would be appropriate for little children to rap.

Not very Valentine-y

At lunch today a woman told me about her worst Valentine's Day ever. The story began "When I was in the third grade, I had a crush on this boy ..." I was secretly amused by this, since MY worst Valentine's Day ever starts kind of the same way. Only I was in seventh grade, and I had simultaneous crushes on not one boy, but TWO boys who were best friends. David and Dean. Liking two guys at once seems kinda slutty now that I think about it, but back then it was all very innocent. In fact, as a younger child I fearlessly harbored crushes on five, ten, twenty boys at once. In third grade, I used my red leather-covered diary to record rankings of boys I had crushes on. Every night I would dig the little book out of a dresser drawer, unlock it with a tiny gold key, and review the list from the night before. Then I would make a new list ranking all the cute boys in my class who were fortunate enough to be the object of my incredibly discriminating taste. I was always an oddly organized child.

But anyway ... David and Dean. I'm not sure exactly why I had crushes on these boys. I mean, they were super-cute. But they hated my guts! And they were always so mean to me. Teachers would always be, like, "Amy, they are mean to you because they like you!" I always thought that was such bullshit. Still do. Anyhow, here we are, Valentine's Day, 1990. I didn't have a boyfriend, but that didn't mean I wasn't completely optimistic heading to school that day. I mean, who knows what sort of romantic surprises the boys with secret crushes on me might come up with?! So it was with a shriek of glee that I opened my locker after second period to find a gigantic heart-shaped box, trimmed with white lace and big flowery writing that said "Be My Valentine." O, can you imagine the delight?! I threw down my schoolbag and reached into the locker to retrieve my treat. Only when I picked it up, I thought, "Hm. Awfully light for a five-pound box of chocolates!" Then I opened the lid and read this message scrawled on the inside of the box:

Roses are red,
violets are blue,
you suck,
you fucking bitch.

Or, I don't know ... something like that. Something that began with "Roses are red," and something that ended with the eff and the bee. After I read it, my face grew hot and teary. Don't recall what I did next, but I do remember hearing those horrid boys cackling down the hall. To this day, I haven't the faintest idea how those assholes broke into my locker. And what I really hate about that story is that it bubbles up in my brain on this day every single year. Isn't that depressing? Isn't that sad? Well, I'll share with you the thing that always makes me feel better. I know for a fact that despite being cute and athletic in junior high, both of those guys went on to be losers as adults. And I didn't. I win!