Clown

Some people are able to practice more than one religion at the same time. I have a child who can. In addition to the family’s shared faith, he has his own private code. I don’t know much about it, really, except that a lot of things violate it. Reading directions, for instance, seems to be a basic tenet that must never be violated, on pain of death. Others, such as research, are negotiable. He is willing, for instance, to look things up in the dictionary, but only after he has already completed the task at hand his own way. Like this:

Dangle: A sound: The bells make a noise like dangle langle lang.

Nuclear: Not clear: I tried to answer the question, but I could not, because the meaning of the question was nuclear.

Orchestra: A killer whale: There is a movie where an orchestra lives in a big water tank, and a boy loves the orchestra and the orchestra loves the boy too but the orchestra is very homesick so the boy takes the orchestra back to the ocean where it belongs.

Scarf: To eat real fast: When I am in a hurry I scarf my food and run right out the door.

Organic: A song played on an organ: If an organic is boring which it usually is you still have to sit still and be quiet and listen as best you can.

Vehicle: A person that lives in the mountains and hunts bears and stuff: This vehicle came over for dinner and ate with a knife and fork for the first time.

Muster: Yellow stuff that you put on a hot dog: Please pass the muster.

Shrewd: What they wrap you in when you’re dead: What kind of teacher wants you to think about shrewds when you are only just a child and should not be thinking about deadness?    

Subtle: When a movie is not speaking English and they put words on the bottom: Movies with subtles are silly because you cannot read the subtles and watch the movie at the same time.

Sum: A root, not a whole word: I cannot make a sentence with sum unless I add something so I will mention sumo wrestlers and assume and I hope that is good enough.

Tumult: A move in gymnastics: Adrian did a couple of flips and a double tumult.

Neutral: It has to do with the brain: The brain has neutral transmitters with spaces in between and that is how you think.

Syntax: The gaps in the brain: Brain waves jump around between the neutral syntaxes and it makes thinking happen.

Loose: When you can’t find something: Don’t loose your temper anymore.   It has often been suggested that the boy’s purpose here is to be funny. Well, maybe. If so, he sure misses the mark, since I am not laughing, and neither is his teacher. Well, but that could be inaccurate, too. Some teachers could probably bust a gut thinking about a parent tearing her own hair out at sight of another assignment done like this. I wouldn’t be surprised. They don’t seem any too fond of parents. Oh, dear. Does his teacher know about the tears? About the aspirin - lots of aspirin? About the fainting spells, the bald spots, the stomach aches? Is this teacher laughing at me right now? Telling his friends, her friends, all about it, all of them screaming with laughter, crying, "Stop! Stop! You’re gonna make me pee my pants?" When I was a child, I had no idea I would grow up to be a clown.