Top Five Bonus: Day of Dead Meat

OK, so since I've been up, more or less, since 4:30 with the baby, and the brain isn't functioning as well as it might, and since Harwell is desperate for procrastination material (besides my story I emailed him!), here goes...

This is a Bonus for the Top Five. Not one of my students. Me. As a third-grader at Woodland Elementary, the same school my father taught in until just last year.

Throughout my childhood, my father had many nicknames for me. Stupid Bastard Kid was popular after the incident with the plugged up toilet. SFB (short for Shit For Brains) was also a widely used option. But perhaps no other name summed things up as much as his favorite. Dead Meat.

As in, "My boy's Dead Meat from the neck up."

Witty man, my father.

As I mentioned, my father taught third grade in the same elementary school I attended as a young lad. In fact, he taught in the classroom directly next to mine (the room next to Mrs. Cooper, who was about 133 years old then and still carried a stack of books big enough to squash a third grade head). As I didn'tmention, my father had the sense of humor of a third grader as well, particularly when he got around his trusty sidekick, the school janitor.

Why did my father hang out with the janitor and not his fellow faculty members? He liked intelligent conversation.

So, one fine afternoon, while I was engrossed in a biography of Abe Lincoln (who will show up again in the Top Five - be ready, there's a quiz at the end), my father and the janitor, were standing outside the room. And decided to have a little fun.

"I bet I can get his attention," my father said. "Without using his name."

The janitor, wise man that he was, knew a sucker's bet when he saw one. "Too easy," he said. My father, always up for a challenge acquiesed and allowed Janitor to lay down the terms. "One chance," said the custodial marvel. "One chance. One word - not his name. He looks up, you win. If not..." He thought for a moment. "And no cheating. No yelling 'Fire!' or anything like that."

Again, my father agreed, safe in the knowledge that he had a secret weapon.

You can see this coming, right?

He leaned in the door, as close as he could without coming in the room. "Dead Meat!"

My head snapped around like it was on a swivel, to see my father and his janitorial buddy standing there, laughing.

After some debate as to whether my father really won (after all Dead Meat is technically two words), it was agreed that it really didn't matter. Because after all, like some Pavolvian dog with that damn bell, I had answered to Dead Meat.

And thhe truly sad part? I stil answer to it to this day.

I know, I know. Not my best work. But its early / late. And I'm tried. And I'm dead meat from the neck up.

More later.