My Earliest Work

Self censorship has never really been my cup of tea but for some reason I began a post two weeks ago today that I never finished. In fact the draft that I saved consisted solely of this one sentence: Add Gatorade to the list of beverages that taste like cacapoo when consumed post teeth brushing.

How I dared dream of withholding such insight from the masses is beyond me. (By masses I mean the bakers dozen or two of you regular readers)

So I'm back in lovely Shaker Heights, Ohio. I think it's a clear sign that you've been looking at too many apartments when you get to the home you grew up in and you start thinking about how much it would rent for in Manhattan. Suffice it to say I think it would be out of my price range. You just don't see too many four floor units with 60 plus ft. trees in both the front and back yards in the East Village for less than $3000 a month.

It's nice to know some things never change when you go home. For example, no matter how many dogs or cats we've had or how long we've had them, my parents are both equally certain to refer to each by the wrong gender. Zoey is always a he and Poncho is always she despite anatomical evidence to the contrary. What's more, no matter how many times I explain how to use the DVD player I purchased for the house a year and a half ago, I know it will only be used during the brief visits when I'm home. The rest of the year it inexplicably stops working. Go figure.

Today at the License Bureau I made two fairly important decisions somewhat arbitrarily. As part of the process when you renew your license they ask you if you want to be an organ donor and if you have (or want, not sure wasn't really paying attention) a living will. I asked the woman working there if I was an organ donor on my previous license. She said yes, so I said, sure, I'll be an organ donor. Then when she asked about the living will, I opted for the same "what did it say on my old one" approach. She shook her head indicating that I either didn't have or didn't want a living will last time, so I said "nah" for the new license. One might think a living will and the decision to donate ones organs would warrant a deeper understanding or further inquiry into the matter, but at the same time, nobody likes to spend more time than necessary on a sunny afternoon at the DMV.

I found a short story that I wrote in forth grade in my room. It's five pages typed, which for forth grade is pretty major. I wasn't very subtle back then. My dedication page read: This book is dedicated to my wonderful teacher, Mrs. Servis.

You gotta know who's buttering your bread, right? I like how I called it a book. How it went unpublished is a mystery. Writing as a forth grader I made the narrator of this story a sixth grader named Jerome. Jerome claimed that at age 11 he was in the "middle stages of his life." Either Jerome didn't plan on making it to 30 or I couldn't really grasp the scope of life-spans back then. Here are some excerpts as I attempted to establish my comedic voice at an early age:

On my first birthday, I got a mobile for my crib, a rattle, two stuffed animals, a cat named Fluffy, and a frog named Herman. My biggest gift came three days early. I learned to walk! At first, I stumbled a lot and hung on to things, but then I was off to the races. Actually, I was really only racing Herman, who usually beat me, but...Just kidding.

Notice the use of the “but” in the last sentence to delay the reveal that I was merely kidding about losing in a race to my stuffed frog. You can't teach instincts like those.

This Jerome character showed some shades of cockiness. Check out this passage about him seeing himself in the mirror for the first time.

To tell you the truth, I looked pretty good, better than Michael J. Fox, better than Paul Newman, better than Kirk Cameron, better than Sean Connery, better than George Michael, better than...O.K, I'll admit I did get a little carried away, but I did look pretty good, actually very good, better than.....

How about that list of attractive men I came up with circa 1990. I'm surprised that didn't lead to a parent teacher conference. I've gotta think that my dad, who typed this up for me, must have influenced the Paul Newman and Sean Connery calls. As a forth grader I don't think I was aware of their timeless good looks. I don't know which is more disturbing a thought, that at age nine I knew Paul Newman and Sean Connery were devilishly handsome, or that my dad might have felt compelled to represent an older generation by inserting these two to round out the list of younger heart throbs, Fox, Cameron and Michael. Apparently I learned at a very young age what a powerful comedic device the ellipsis could be.

The story ends with Jerome on this obnoxious rant:

By a week after my second birthday I could talk like a five year old. On the eighth day after my birthday, my dad took me to a baseball game. I amazingly understood it. I had a hot dog and coke. Afterwards, I got my IQ tested. It was 120! My parents couldn't believe it. The next day they decided to put me in preschool.

I guess I didn't realize back then that an IQ score is fixed and that ones IQ doesn't change over the course of his/her life. 120 is pretty good, but it's only like the 89th percentile. 140 is usually the cut-off for what's considered a genius. Presumably I thought that a two year old having a 120 IQ was incredible but really I only made Jerome out to be of above average intelligence. The only thing spectacular about him was that he was an insufferably pretentious little prick.

The End