Grammar Wars

The counselors were pleading (perhaps in vain) with my seniors to apply often, apply early for college in the fall. Then one of them collected her evaluations. "Oh, what a relief," she breathed breathlessly, pawing through them like they were coupons, "so many positive comments! Nobody said I suck!"

Then, her eyes narrowed on one in her hand and she sucked in a lungful of air. "Wait a minute...this one says I suck!"

All the while I was sitting at my desk, my fingers laced underneath my chin, a look on my face I'm told is labelled the "near-suicide" look. Or the "I wish I was on my bicycle" look. Or maybe the "What kind of soup are they serving today?" look. I don't know. I have so many looks.

In any event, all I wanted to do was get back to the toils of secondary education (teaching ballads about how to drink ale). Enough of this crap (planning for a future more successful than mine).

So when the counselor turned on me, I was startled. "Why can't you teach them better adjectives than suck?" she demanded, not realizing that she'd teed it up for me and I wouldn't be able to resist giving it a whack.

"Actually, you just used it as a verb," I replied. And cooly blew smoke off my metaphorical pistol.

The class erupted. The counselor surrendered her ground good-humoredly and exit, stage left. I turned to face my class.

"When you're all gossiping about this," I said, "and I'm pretty sure you will, put me in a cape. I think this whole thing would be much more dashing if I were caped."

Sometimes...God, sometimes I love that place.