All How-To Topics
Better than Plumb
|
|
Me and my big mouth
comments (0) June 16th, 2008 in Blogs
Kevin Ireton, editor-at-large
no recommendations
A couple of weeks ago, I was sitting in my office when the phone rang. We have those caller-ID phones, so I looked to see who was calling. It was the president of our company. She seldom calls me, and she never calls to chat. So naturally I assumed the call must be about something bad, and I considered not answering it. But of course, she knows where I work. I answered the phone.
“Kevin, how would you like to inspire the next generation of writers?”
“That sounds like a loaded question, Sue. What’s on your mind?”
She explained that her son’s fourth-grade class was studying expository writing and that they were producing a booklet about life at the school. Sue offered to have The Taunton Press lay out and print the booklet. She also invited the kids to visit us on a field trip and wanted one editor and one art director to speak to the kids.
I asked her what day and time all of this was supposed to happen, figuring I could just claim that I was having a root canal at that time. I didn’t have a root canal scheduled, of course, but I could fix that, confident that even a root canal would be less frightening than a roomful of 9-year-olds vibrating like tuning forks in anticipation of summer break.
Unfortunately, Sue said, “Oh, the scheduling is flexible, just tell me a couple of days in the next few weeks that would work for you.” There was no getting out of it.
Of course, I was happy to help the kids. I just don’t know anything about fourth graders. I don’t have kids, and it’s been a long time since I was in the fourth grade (although I distinctly remember getting paddled by my fourth-grade teacher in front of the whole class because I offered a piece of Styrofoam to one of my classmates, claiming it was popcorn). I don’t know what the cultural references are for 9-year-olds. Heck, I’ve never even seen SpongeBob SquarePants.
It didn’t help that whenever I told someone that I had to speak to 50 4th graders for 45 minutes that person would go all bug-eyed and slack-jawed, and these were people who had kids. I kept flashing on that scene from Kindergarten Cop where Arnold Schwarzenegger says he has a headache and one little kid says that it’s probably a tumor.
Well, the kids came this week, and it turned out that there were 100 of them. So I had to speak to 50 kids for 45 minutes twice. While I was speaking to one group about writing, my colleague Michael Amaditz was talking to the other group about page layout. Then we switched.
It actually went pretty well, thanks to a technique that I’ve employed throughout my life and that works in many situations (especially dinners with my in-laws). I simply dread something so much that the reality, in comparison, turns out to be a pleasant surprise.
The only possible hiccup is that I led off with a joke, carefully calculated to capture the kids’ attention and win their affection as somebody much hipper than their teachers thanks to the joke’s judicious use of two relatively innocuous cuss words. It may have worked—they gasped when I said the words—but as the first group was leaving, one of the teachers took me aside and suggested that I might not want to tell that joke to the second group. One of the other teachers, she said, might get upset and would worry that the kids would repeat the joke.
So I heeded her advice and skipped the joke with the second group of kids. As luck would have it, our president’s son was in the second group, so I know he didn’t go home and repeat the offending story. However, one of my colleagues had a kid in the first group, and the next day, I got an email from her. She wanted to know if I had any idea why her daughter had come down to breakfast that morning and asked for “some of those damn Cheerios.”
I asked her if she was upset by my negative influence on her daughter. She wrote back and said, “Yes, after hearing you speak, she says she wants to be an editor.”
P.S. OK, OK, here’s the joke:
Two brothers, 8 and 10 years old, are lying in bed one night, talking before they go to sleep. The older brother, Johnny, says, “I think we’re old enough to swear in front of our parents.” The younger brother, Timmy, is not so sure, but agrees to go along.
“OK,” Johnny says, “we start tomorrow morning. I’m going to say the word ‘damn.’ What word are you going to say? ”
“Well, if you say ‘damn,’ I’ll say ‘ass.’ ” And with that they both go to sleep.
The next morning, as they’re sitting at the kitchen table, Mom asks Johnny what he wants for breakfast. Johnny says, “I believe I’ll have some of those damn Cheerios.” Well, Mom has a fit.
“How dare you talk to me like that,” she says. Then, she tells Johnny he’s grounded. No TV for a month. Finally, she hauls him over to the kitchen sink and washes his mouth out with soap.
Eventually, Mom settles down, turns to Timmy, and asks, “OK, mister, what would you like for breakfast?”
And Timmy says, “Well, you can bet your @ss I don’t want any of those damn Cheerios.”
posted in: Blogs
|
|
|
|
-
How to Paint Fiber-Cement Siding
Painter Jim Lacey shares some tips for caulking and painting fiber-cement siding. read more
|
|
About this blog
As the editor of Fine Homebuilding, I spend my weekdays trying to produce a magazine that will satisfy 300,000 of the most demanding builders, both professional and amateur. As the owner of a 200-year old Cape in Connecticut’s Litchfield Hills, I spend weekends working on my house.
Each activity invariably informs, and complicates, the other. In this blog, I’ll offer observations from both worlds -- publishing and building -- with the hope of providing some useful or at least entertaining insights.
Comments (0)
You must be logged in to post comments. Click here to login.