Kindergarten baby, stick your head in gravy
On my drizzly walk home from the train station today, I started thinking about the book I’m going to write. Inspired by the author who wrote the book, All I Ever Really Needed To Know, I Learned in Kindergarten, I’ve decided to write a book called All I Ever Really Needed To Know, I Learned in 6th Grade.
And here’s what I learned:
1. I learned responsibility when I became captain of the crossing guard.
2. I learned some stuff about Native Americans.
3. I learned that people don’t like it when you ruin the ending of The Empire Strikes Back for them, even though it had already been out for like, two years.
4. I learned really important dirty stuff when I read a much dog-eared and passed-around copy of Judy Blume’s Forever.
5. I learned how to effectively resolve peer conflict by chanting, “Yo momma, yo daddy, yo bald-headed granny!”
So I guess it’s not really an entire book – maybe more of an index card. But still, some important lessons all the same. It’s mostly the last one that I hope to reintroduce into my daily life, particularly at work.
“Jenny, it seems like these projections are a little off on the five-year forecast. Can you double check the formulas?”
“Yo momma, yo daddy, yo bald-headed granny!”
“Uh, never mind. I’ll do it myself.”
“Damn straight you will. You and your bald-headed granny. Don’t even pretend like she has hair.”
Because she totally doesn’t.
Filed under: General on June 1st, 2007
May 31st, 2007 at 10:00 pm
Yeah. I learned all that stuff.
And something about Esprit jeans and safety pins at the ankles.
Knowledge is power.
June 1st, 2007 at 7:44 am
Somehow the thought of having Sinéad O’Connor as my grandmother is truly devastating me…
June 1st, 2007 at 8:37 am
You’ve been in the free-rum line again, haven’t you?
June 1st, 2007 at 10:15 am
Laying the smackdown on folically-challeneged grandparents? Oh, Jen. What have you become?
June 1st, 2007 at 10:15 am
Laying the smackdown on folically-challeneged grandparents? Oh, Jen. What have you become?
June 1st, 2007 at 12:28 pm
How about: I see London. I see France. I see my boss’s underpants.
Um. Wait. Never mind.
June 1st, 2007 at 12:40 pm
Jenny, not that I don’t enjoy your writing (quite the contrary), but I would really appreciate it—and I think I speak for us all—if you would post some more of them rabbit head pictures thank you very much.
June 1st, 2007 at 12:44 pm
sarah: you used safety pins? we just did the “fold and roll” technique. it was a real nice look.
RW: exactly! that’s why it’s such a powerful taunt!
karen: [looks down at ground] maybe. maybe i was there one time.
sir: look, sometimes i have to cut hard and cut deep and if it means talking smack about your chrome-domed granny, i’ll do it. don’t take it personally.
heather anne: that’s a good one! also, “[boss] and [co-worker] sittin’ in a tree, k-i-s-s-i-n-g!”
peefer: are you sure about that? i think rabbit head is creeping people out. well… since you asked so sweetly, i’ll work on something over the weekend.
June 1st, 2007 at 2:49 pm
So, there really were rabbit-head pictures? I thought they were projections from my tortured psyche. I feel relieved, then, in one sense. In another, Jenny, I do not, because that means the pictures were all too real.
And I know the other kids told you to call my granny baldheaded, and I don’t blame you, but I should probably tell you, one day, about the tragic incident involving grandma and the Marine boot-camp barber that afternoon when I was taking my ballet lesson, but for now, thanks for stirring up the horrible memories.
June 1st, 2007 at 3:50 pm
jen jen jen jen! i found something for you!
http://bblinks.blogspot.com/2007/06/perfect-road-rage-antidote.html
trust me. it’s perfect for you.
June 1st, 2007 at 4:37 pm
Judy Blume! My entire childhood sex education. And all the 7th-grade angst, too. Gah! Bring back Sometimes Rabbit!!
June 1st, 2007 at 5:08 pm
Whew…thanks Jenny. I was worried that you would gag me with the disgusting second verse of that little ditty. O, nutz…now I can’t get it out of my little bald-head….
June 3rd, 2007 at 3:48 pm
I have no idea how I made it thirty-one years without knowing about “Yo momma, yo daddy, yo bald-headed granny!” But now that I know about it, it’s sure going to make life easier.
June 3rd, 2007 at 8:45 pm
Truly advice for the ages.
June 4th, 2007 at 7:14 am
roy:i’m so sorry! is that why you gave up ballet?
mainja: LOVE IT! but… do you think it would be overkill if i wore the rabbit head while driving those?
shari: 7th grade? pfft. i was sooo one year ahead of you on learning the dirty stuff.
fiorello: which line? oh… the one that goes, “first grade tot, stick your head in…” that one?
pants: yeah, the nice thing about that chant is that as we grow older, it’s more and more likely that our friends’ grannies really are bald-headed.
tracy lynn: free of charge!