The Once-in-a-While

Daily News: My Report
Card.

1 I have a zest for mediocrity. 

2  It's in my bones.

3  I love that I can do so many things in a lesser-than-average fashion.

4  If I paint a wall, for example, I inevitably create more holidays than a school teacher's calendar.  

5  I could paint over those things for an eternity, and IF I show someone my work, they will inevitably (there's that word again!) point out my holidays.

6  If I had to give myself a grade for the way I live my life, I think I would give myself a C. 

7  In education, a "C" is considered average. 

8  It's regional, of course. Everything varies according to where a person has been brought up. 

9  But I know my habits. I know that as a young student, when a teacher lectured in high school, I often looked out the windows to the sky and clouds. This is exactly how mediocre people become mediocre. 

10  I also write mediocre poetry.

11  I consider myself an imagist. But a mediocre imagist. I acquired my imagery skills from ignoring boring lectures and looking out the window at the clouds and the sky when I was a school boy. 

12  A lot of my mediocre poetry contains clouds, rain, skies, things like that.

13  My "poetry" is pretty mediocre. If I got graded on how mediocre it is, I might even get a C+. That means I'm just a little bit above average on poetic mediocrity. 

14  Last week in a fit of ennui, I pulled out all my poems.

15  I think there were fifteen or twenty, my life's work. In terms of life's work, I would give myself a D-. 

16  P-R-E-T-T-Y mediocre.

17  I decided the other day to haul them out and touch them up. 

18  The first thing i did was i got rid of using lower case "i's"

in my poems. Stuff like, "when i wuz small i..."

19  Dude. 

20  You're not e.e cummings, k?

21

22  Anybody looking?

23  So.

24  I also took out cutesy spellings of words (see "wuz," item 18, above.).  

25  I then combed the lot for any reference to myself as either a soldier, a boxer, or a knight. Can't have that. Any mention OR reference to any of those topics lowers the grade.

26  I next combed the lot with random capitalizations. Here is an example I made up for this piece u are reading right now:

upon the shattered hill

a lone soldier, a boxer,
AND a knight
rolled all in one stands, 
on his hands
the man's

staring astonished

at the burning Field

below

defeated but not

without a bit of fight

Still left in him.

he sighs, torn by the

earthy Reality that smells of

dirt, filth, and mud,
cruddy suds

and of a childhood

that ended all too
soon
like the lilting,
limited life 
of a lofty
spoon that
bent for lack of
an ice cream scoop.

27 Finger snaps and bongos.

28  Maybe the shaking of a hippy tambourine?

29  How did it make u feel?

30  Nothing like really bad poetry. I give the lot of it a D, straight up.

31  Moving On, Part One: Did you ever try to throw a trash can out? I don't know that you can. There is always a good Sam who will come by and say, "Hey, I saw you accidentally threw your trash can away, dude. Here go."

32  I thought I made that up. Turns out it's already been used. Harland Williams. Funny dude. I don't wanna steal someone else's stuff. So. What stirred that one?

33  This past weekend I decided that we have too much clutter everywhere. 

34  I'm certain we are the only people who have that problem.

35  I wanted to get rid of crap in the garage. One of the biggest items not in use in the garage was our treadmill.

36  The thing is pretty old but in mint condition.

Like this guy's bike.

37  Helene went on our Neighborhood Next Door online thingy and saw that some guy had his treadmill for sale and was asking $225 for it.  

38  We had one, and decided to ask a mere $50 for it. We just wanted it outta here, but thought we might get a dinner out to boot.

39  We received zero hits. We finally found that local garbage dudes offer free pick-up on certain items. 

40  I didn't pay too much attention to all the details because I'm a C student of life. Possibly a C- if the guy grading you is a tyrant. 

41  Ah, everything is sort of a C- these days. The other day I had a hankering for a chocolate milkshake at Mickey D's. I was particularly interested in the whipped cream with the cherry on top. Just a hankering.

42  I had to meet with this gal about some business "...between 11:30 and noon.." because she is also an average person, and our McDonald's is five minutes away without traffic. It's usually pretty quick this time of day, so I took the gamble, being a mediocre guy.

43  No traffic, got through all the lights, got right through to the window, and gave my order: "One chocolate shake, please." I said it like a boss. 

44

45  I then zipped up to the other window. The girl inside came into view, then out, like they do. She then opened the window like a priestess. "Did you order the chocolate shake?" she asked.

46  "Yes." I said it like a boss.

47  "Our machine is down. Would you like some other sort of drink? A coke?" She paused. "Some other sort of drink?"

48  I was okay, because earlier in the week Raley's had run out of recycled plastic bags, and the Raley's gal tried putting four bags of groceries into two paper bags without bothering to reinforce one bag with the other. So I was pretty used to C- work. 

49  "Do you have one of those Oreo thingys?" I said.

50  "Do you mean a McFlurry?"

51  "Yeah," I said. "With lots of napkins." My experience with McDonald's chocolate shakes dictated this. I give myself an A+ on that one. 

52  I gave myself a C- in Environmental Awareness. Any fool can see that. What a disastrous waste of paper. 

53  I got home, and the gal wasn't there for the meeting. Helene was still working on getting the treadmill out of the house, but her Apple Mac Book Air decided to buffer and spin. 

54  That continued all the way to last night. I decided that if I could, I would kick her Apple Mac Book Air out of life. 

55  If I tried to throw it out I'm pretty sure some good citizen would notice it, fish it out of the overloaded recycling can, knock on my door, and say, "I saw this in your recycling and figured you would not want to be without this."

56  I would take it back, say, "Thanks. Thanks SOOOOOO
much," close the door, and give that fellow an A+ in Citizenship. 

57  And I would work the rest of the week trying to get the thing working again. 

58  In the meantime, I'm looking over at the Mac Book Air. We should have that puppy working by 2025.

59  And I just walked into the garage. I almost tripped over the cord to the treadmill but caught myself.

60  I smiled. Because in finally giving in to the futility of everyday life, I give myself at least a B. 

61  Well, a B-, I suppose. 

62  Oh. And JUST now, Helene looked up from the Mac Book Air and said, "HEY! I finally fixed this thing!!!"

63  She was always an "A" student anyway. 

64  Gottago.

65  Have a better day. Smiles warm your heart.

66  See you again.

67  Live life.

68  Love life.

69  Peace.

fin.