Chatter and natter and patter, oh my!

I remember well that lame speech foisted on us underachieving students about how carrying out one's routine chores was the precipice upon which a great and noble character could be built. The talk's dominant theme was the nasty though crucial task of gathering dog poop and the varied methods wherein this duty might be discharged. I remember feeling awkward for her, as she stood at the podium in front of throngs of her disinterested cohorts. Her noticeable lisp didn't help matters either, and you can imagine the difficulty we had in suppressing our laughter every time she uttered the phrase "pooper-scooper," or for the sake of accuracy, "pooper-schcooper." Yes, the memory is fixed in my mind, largely because even then I was amazed, my jaw hung to my knees in shock and disbelief, that what I was hearing constituted the best my cohort could offer by way of public oratory.

Where this promising young woman ended up I cannot say, and I sincerely wish that the best has happened to her and will continue to do so. Perhaps she now consults, maybe leading a community of toast masters in their quest to master toasting. If the eager, beaming faces of our teachers – not all of them, surely there were a few healthy cynics in their ranks (one can only hope!) – who enthusiastically offered her up as a paradigm of good student were then anything to go by, then I imagine more than a few have helped guide her cheery, accommodating personality towards ambitious goals and influential positions. From what little else I remember of this kind, soft-spoken, lisping girl, I can only hope that she is enjoying her life and the fruits that only schcooping poop can lead to.

Nevertheless, the sort of optimistic, nincompoopic nonsense that then earned her the acclaim of my junior high school’s teachers and administrators reflects the murky depths of lazy idiocy our culture has long been mired in. Ahem. That is to say, I cannot stomach for long the cheery chatter, optimistic natter and doe-eyed patter of asinine speeches. And when this morning a memory of this event clouded my already confused thinking and that young girl’s lisping platitudes about duty, diligence and cleanliness filled my mind, I rushed to represent my disgust by spitting on the floor. But being that I was inside my own living quarters and remembering well an element of the insights of her idiotic harangue, I held back from ejecting my foul saliva and instead swallowed it down, a lonely tear tracing its path beneath my eye, the tart saltiness of my spit offended me so.

Apparently it’s a Spanish proverb which holds that “honor and money share not the same purse.” Perhaps as I’ve none of the latter, I am replete with the former, and though I did not gain the enthusiastic plaudits of my teachers, I nevertheless have not sullied the world with vacuous speeches which return again and again into the minds of my listeners, who though less ambitious or aim-oriented, have not violated the world with unsolicited crap. In related news, Obama has heralded a new era of peace, indeed he has been given a medal for his peacemaking inclinations.