Notes on Madness

Three issues today:

1. Last night we went to the "qualifier" for the Pinewood Derby for the Cub Scouts. Remember the Pinewood Derby? When your dad helped you by giving you a pocket knife and telling you not to cut yourself as you worked on your wee little block of wood? Well, forget it. Those days are gone. Not only can you buy the official car kit from the Boy Scouts, but you can buy an unending array of accessories, from tiny weights to a "cockpit kit" with a driver and race controls. I remember that almost all our cars were essentially wedges of wood with some paint; now many look like they were assembled by actual pit crews from fiberglass and titanium. I would be shocked to learn that an actual kid had a hand in the construction of some of those space-age marvels. In the official rules I read with amusement that some troops have a separate competition for adults—now I know why. Good gravy.


2. If you have a daughter like Born Dancin', and you let her sit on your shoulders, and you are drinking a Perrier with lemon, and she asks for some, be very careful as you decide whether to comply. All was going well as we took turns taking sips, until suddenly I was taking a bath. (A "shower" suggests far too little liquid; I experienced a downpour.) My shouts of shock and horror only brought her to empty the bottle and giggle. Once I had her on the ground and stood dripping, I could only join her in laughing, 'cause what else are you going to do?


3. I'm in the midst of a mountain of grading, which makes me punchy in the first place. Then throw on some bizarre and painful student papers, and I teeter quite near the edge of sanity. Never mind that a student just identified the author Simon Garfinkle as "Simpson Garginkle" (and the fact that that name made me giggle as long as it did is no good sign): I recently stood witness to a paper so crammed with awkward and confusing phrasing that I nearly wept. I beheld with awe the rare and terrifying triple mixed metaphor, as follows:

   "Knowing he is closing in on his prey, the predator eases into a deadly game of cat and mouse played by many as they weave their deadly web of malicious intrigue before the final moment when the trap is finally sprung."

   That may actually be four metaphors, but I gave her some slack and assumed that the nameless "predator" was the later-mentioned cat...

Argh. I was hoping that sharing would get it out of my system, but now I'm just sullen all over again. We're closing in on the end of the semester, though, and the grading piles are slowly going down, so I should survive to grade another day (and, hopefully, you know—help some students learn or something along the way). Tonight I get to watch a play with my honors class (from which that paper was drawn, as evinced by the high vocabulary and generally acceptable grammar), and that's always entertaining. At least there's that.