A class of third graders are sitting down at their desks one morning when their teacher walks in.
“Good morning class, today we’ll be working on our English. Can someone use the word Fascinate in a sentence for me?”
Little girl in the front row raises her hand high, squirming in her seat. “The stars last night were fascinating.”
Teacher looks at her and says,”Close, I want you to use the word Fascinate.”
A boy near the middle of the room stands up and says,”I’m fascinated by the ocean and it’s creatures.”
“That’s still not the answer I’m looking for.” The teacher says. “Can anyone give me an example of Fascinate in a sentence.”
A quiet boy in the back stands up, clears his throat and says,”My grandmother came over last night wearing her new dress. It has ten buttons in the the front but her boobies are so big she can only fasten eight of them.”
Not quite as tragic, but it manifested into something which has haunted me at my job for years.
When I was a little kid learning about the world around me, my dad was naturally the font of all knowledge for me, He would answer all of little snippersmith's questions with his own unique insights and anecdotes teaching me of my surroundings with varying degrees of accuracy.
One day In a picture book, I encountered a photo of one of natures most bizarre creatures, the mighty duck billed platypus. Filled with curiosity of this bizarre creature and an Inability to read a young snippersmith asked his father what this creature was called, To which his father replied,
That's a Quackopotamous.....
As is a highly likely situation in day to day life the Platypus (or indeed the Quackopotamous), did not come into conversation for another 17 years, Until of course the Platypus came into conversation around the lunch table at a now grown up snippersmith's full time place of work.
I have not been allowed to forget I thought the Platypus was called a Quackopotamous, Indeed I am reminded on a daily basis by my colleagues, by my nickname Quackopotamous .
Thanks Dad.
EDIT 1: Holy Cow this took off! Gold! thank you so much.
A man gets a new job at the zoo.
On his first day, he still doesn't really understand what exactly he's meant to do, just that it involves the Gorillas. He goes and checks in and the manager sits him down to explain.
"Now look," says the manager, "We've been having some troubles lately with our gorilla. He was acting up, getting really agitated with the environment, so we had to send him away. We told the people that enclosure's being repaired, but we're actually looking for a new gorilla - can you do it for us?"
The man is unsure, but he needs the money, so he agrees, puts on a gorilla suit and goes out there. At first he's a bit mopey, so he sits around a lot.
After a couple of days he begins to warp up and eats a couple of bananas and wanders around a little.
Over the course of the next few weeks he becomes progressively more outgoing, moving around, playing in the jungle gym, hollering around and beating his chest. He's a big hit and everything's going really well for him, until one day he's on his monkey bars and getting really into it, but he slips and flies through the air, over the pit, clears the fence and lands in a pile of bushes in the next enclosure.
He is just beginning to pick himself up, when out of the corner of his eye, he sees something in the foliage.
A pair of eyes lock with his.
It moves closer.
He knows this is it.
He begins to pray.
Suddenly the creature leaps and tackles him - the biggest, ugliest lion he's ever seen!
It leans in close.
He can see every gleaming tooth in it's mouth
He can smell the lion's breath
It opens it's mouth
And from inside the lion he hears a whisper.
"Make this good or we'll both lose our jobs."
This is the story of Jack and the Beanstalk, after the story ends. After chopping down the beanstalk, Jack realizes that he’s actually pretty damn good with an axe, and casual vegetative vandalism really struck his fancy, so he began chopping down other trees for a living. He became a traveling woodsman, and he enjoyed many years of his simple life of manual labor.
One day, as he chops wood, he hears screams from a nearby cottage. Hurriedly breaking in (because recall: jack has no problem with entering houses uninvited), he sees a cross dressing lycanthrope attempting to devour a little girl dressed all in red and her little grandmother too. Wielding his trusty axe, Jack murdered yet another fantasy creature, and safely led Little Red all the way back home. Answering the door was a beautiful woman of around his age. After sending Little Red to bed, the two of them talked for hours.
One thing led to another, and a year later they were married with a child on the way. They had a beautiful little boy named Jack Junior who followed in his father’s steps to become a woodsman. This was fortunate, because as Junior grew up, Jack was feeling the pain of his previous adventures. An old back injury from jumping from the beanstalk was haunting him, and over time his posture grew more and more hunched. He had a tough time working, but at least Junior was becoming a strapping young man.
One day, Jack and Junior took the long road to the grandmothers place to bring her a meal, just like that fateful trio Red took so many years ago. When they arrived, the grandmother greeted them cheerily, welcoming them in and making conversation. “Oh Junior,” she said, “you’ve grown into such a handsome and strong young man. It’s so kind of you to handle all the work so your poor father, with his bad back and all, doesn’t have to. Why don’t you have a girlfriend yet?” Junior hesitated. “Well Grandma,” he replied. “It’s because... I’m gay”. The close-minded, set-in-her-ways grandma’s expression became stormy. She pulled poor hunched-over Jack into adjacent room, and whispered angrily: “Jack, your life is a mess! Your posture is terrible and your son isn’t giving me any grandsons!” Jack replied: “Ma, we’re happy, you can’t just-“ But she interrupted. “No excuses!” She snapped. “You need to straighten your lumbar, Jack!”
A Christmas Poem
by Dad (1952–2009)
'Twas the night before Christmas and all through the shack,
Not a creature was stirring, we was all in the sack;
Our mugs were placed on the mantle with cheer,
In hope that Saint Nick would bring us a beer;
And me I was tucked up all snug in my bed,
But strains of sweet music still danced through my head;
So I sprang from my bed with a crash and a clatter,
And off down the hall with bare feet did I patter;
There on the chair sat my musical pipe,
So I sat down to play without fanfare or hype;
Come Mozart, come Hayden, Stravinski and Strauss,
And write me some music to bring down the house;
When down from the chimney appeared with a crash,
A strange little man in the smoke and the ash;
He wiggled and jumped and got up like a shot,
Came over and said, "Man those cinders are hot!";
His stomach it shook like a bowl full of jelly,
For a moment I thought it was dear old aunt Nelly;
His nose like a cherry, his ears like two jugs,
I was worried that this guy just might be on drugs;
His language was foul, his jokes they were crass,
So I opened the door and threw him out on his ass;
But then as I turned, boy was I ever surprised;
I saw what he'd bought me, or so I surmised;
For there in the corner right under the tree,
Was some brand new sheet music and a case of O.V.;
I turned to say thank-you but found he had gone,
He was not in the garden and not on the lawn;
And just when I thought that he couldn't get far,
I realized the old goat had stolen the car;
Off in the distance he said with a wheeze,
"I hated to do it but you left me the keys!";
I smiled and laughed for this much I could savour,
For I'd just sold the car to my idiot neighbour;
And once more he called as he drove out of sight,
"Merry Christmas to all, and don't drive when you're tight!"
Thank you for everything, Dad. We love and miss you.
