Impotent Information
My four year old son, Saul James, suffers from a schizophrenic type of courage. He has locked himself in darkened closets and waited patiently until I realized we’re playing hide & seek. I usually find this out after hearing his taunting, impatient calls. Saul will follow me under the house in search of a tool I’ve stashed in that light-less realm. When swimming, he’ll boldly tread water that laps at the top of his neck making his head into a little blond bobber.
And yet, animals send him running for the hills. Horses, dogs, frogs, earthworms all become instruments of torture. For Halloween or if he’s just bad, we drag him through a petting zoo. If only DHS understood what we were doing!!!
Lately, we’ve come to realize that Saul’s boldness now extends to falling. The other day, Saul was leaping off the arm of the couch and plummeting to the hardwood floor. A fall of four feet or more depending on how high Saul decides to jump.
The concussion of his landing bringing Melissa to attention. She found him on his belly staring at the shoe molding. “Saul, what are you doing?! You can hurt yourself.”
”Don’t worry mom!” Saul says from the floor. “I don’t break.”
Later as Melissa shares the story with me, she quips, “What will his attitude be when he’s seventeen. He won’t need tattoos – he’ll be covered in scars.”
*****
Look up the word “sophistication” in the dictionary. The antonym is Grape Soda.
*****
I discovered something the other day that I thought every dutiful reader of DodoEggs.com needed to know. You’re welcome in advance…
What would you do if you needed an alias? John Doe has been used and any name you’d make up yourself would sound stupid. This could be a real hindrance if the CIA ever came calling or Hollywood wanted you to create a screen name. I mean you can’t star in a blockbuster spy movie with a name like Pauline Morris!
A spy friend of mine recently shared the formula with me…Step One: Take your middle name and make it your first name. Step Two: Take the street name you live on and make it your last name. It’s that simple.
Hmmm…Say hello to Allen Wrench. (The street is actually Wrenchwright.)
*****
Every now and then I’ll make up my own math worksheets. We’d been studying probability and I decided to create an assignment titled…”If Mr. Teply presses SHUFFLE on his Ipod, what is the probability of…” I then offered the following list of musicians and how many songs from each I supposedly had. Of course I followed this with questions regarding the chances of getting a hip-hop song or a country song etc.
15 songs by The Country Hicks-Ups (I thought this was funny. They didn’t.)
40 songs by YeeeHaaa Surprise (If you read it with an exaggerated accent, it’s funny.)
22 songs by The Saddle Sours (I meant to type Saddle Sores – this is spell check’s fault!)
90 songs by Ka-Thump-Bump (This is the sound I hear every time I walk Wal-Mart’s parking lot.)
55 songs by Lil’ Bling (When I came up with the name, I figured there was a fifty-fifty chance there was an actual artist by that name.)
25 songs by The Bleeding Ears (Well if I had a rock band that would be our name but no one wanted to form a band around a kazoo.)
*****
Look at the title of this post again. I once started an email to my fellow teachers with this title. Curse you spell check!!

February 15th, 2010 at 11:45 am
Mr. T., Grace would love your Math class…
February 16th, 2010 at 10:37 am
” The other day, Saul was leaping off the arm of the couch and plummeting to the hardwood floor. A fall of four feet or more depending on how high Saul decides to jump. ” oh my gosh, I laughed out loud when I read this… I am sure its not a good idea but it is funny.