Bad Call Ref

Now Reading: Dave Barry's Greatest Hits. Dave Barry is, in my opinion, the funniest humor writer in the world and is my inspiration when writing this blog. By all means I am no professional, so don't judge him by how funny I am. I really look up to him when I think of any kind of career as a humor writer.

As I am in the car on my way to Jewel about a half-hour ago because I forgot to get flowers to ask a girl to homecoming, I think to myself, what is wrong with this world? I mean sure, AIDs, cancer, ozone depletion, and professional Pokemon card tournaments are all clues that this world is a sick and twisted place. But what really disgusts me is how elaborate you have to be when asking someone to a dance nowadays. I constantly hear girls saying things like "Well John took Lisa to the football game and he rented a blimp, two jet-fighter airplanes, and Neil Diamond and he asked her to homecoming in front of thousands of people. It was soooooo cute! I really hope I'm asked in a cute way!" Screw you John.

While I'm sure you would all love to read about me complain about how awful my high school problems are, I won't do that. I will, however, complain about little league hockey. Actuallyt, I can't complain about little league hockey, because it provided me with some interesting stories. I know you've probably never heard the term little league hockey. For those of you who can't figure it out, it's like little league baseball, but it's hockey. The main differences are that kids in hockey are constantly slipping on the ice, can't pick their noses with their gloves and helmet on, and can't play in the dirt, because the ground is all frozen. I don't mean your little league, we're good, we're going to play on high school and college hockey teams. I mean the I'm an angry fat kid so I signed up for hockey, I hope I don't have any girls or mentally handicapped kids on my team. Oddly enough, I didn't fall under either of those categories, but most of the kids I played with did. I wasn't good at hockey so I don't fall under the first category, but I wasn't angry or fat, so I don't fall under the second category. I was a crappy, scrawny hockey player without a short temper. I did however, have two girls and a retarded kid on my team during the last season of my career in hockey. What a self-esteem booster.

I think the attitude that characterizes little league hockey is anger. Everyone was angry in little league hockey. The kids were angry at other players, the refs were angry for choosing "little league hockey referee" as their career, and the parents were angry because they have to sit in a freezing cold room and watch their kid suck it up on the ice. The best example of anger in little league hockey I can think of is this.:

Davey and Timmy are two average little league hockey players that are playing against each other in a tournament game. Davey gets hit by Timmy, so Davey, as your typical angry, fat little league hockey player decides that the best course of action would be to throw his stick like a javelin at Timmy. Timmy goes after Davey, and with all the skill and the precision of a player of his caliber accidently trips the referee. So the referee, despite being 100 lbs. heavier and 10 years older than Timmy, picks him up and throws him into the boards. Bad call ref. Now Timmy's angry 300 lb. coach is on the ref's case. And sharing their thoughts on the situation from the stands, Timmy's parents are screaming profanities and making jokes about referee's sexual orientation. Good work parents, that'll teach him. A fight is so close I can taste it. Unfortunately that doesn't happen. What can I say, it would've been better than pay-per-view. To make a long story short, the cops are called to escort the referee of the ice and the game is postponed until the next day.

Basically, I am telling you that little league hockey is the way to go. If you have a chance to sign up for it, do it, it's a buttload of entertainment and I personally enjoyed every minute of it. Also, guys, ask for homecoming dates the normal way, this isn' a proposal, it's a stupid high school dance. And if you're already signed up for the aforementioned hockey league, don't worry, you dont' have to tell your friends he's autistic, just say you're really good.

A Man Among Boys

Going to the dentist is an interesting experience. It's not a particularly exciting or fun one but it's different. This is mainly because, for God knows what reason, I still go to a pediatric dentist that caters mainly to children who are around the age of six.



So I'm sitting in the waiting room, intermittenly doing my physics homework and reading Green Eggs and Ham (which is just one example of the fine literature offered in this waiting room) until I finally hear someone say "Alex? Is there an Alex here?" I could've sworn I heard a little snort as I walked by the lady calling my name, but I decided to save myself the awkwardness and not say anything. So I'm directed to the picture room where I put on the smiley face flack jacket, put the razor sharp plastic band-aid colored thing in my mouth, and get the thing that could be a giant camera or a mounted long range missile launcher pointed at my head. After that the lady leaves the little room, shuts the door, and leaves me by myself. And now the big moment.....click. I feel nothing, see nothing, and think to myself, was that all necessary?



Now the nurse directs me to the "Land Before Time" chair. I go, and lay down and stare up at the Land Before Time poster until the dentist comes.



Sidenote: How many full-length movies can you make about five cartoon, pre-adolescent dinosaur friends singing and dancing their way through dangerous, dinosaur filled lands while still learning valuable lessons about friendship and growing up? Twelve and counting.



So the dentist comes and the check-up goes fairly normally. Except for the 6 year old two chairs away whispering as quiet as 6 year olds can whisper. So naturally I could hear him loud and clear: "Who's the big kid over there?" You should know that the chair that I'm laying in is made for children of his height, so my feet were sticking out about a foot and a half, so I'm fairly noticeable.



The check-up ends and it's time to get the flouride. In an effort to appeal to young children's tastes the only flavors they offer is chocolate chip cookie dough, oreo milkshake, and chocolate fudge sundae. I pick oreo milkshake because I figure a milkshake was closest to the texture of flouride, so it wouldn't be too bad. I wouldn't suggest it.



To finish up the whole experience the same nurse comes up to me and offers me a prize from the treasure box. She asked in a way like she had to ask, but she thought that she kind of knew it was pointless to ask. I took a couple minutes deciding between the Finding Nemo tatoo and the yellow spider ring. The yellow spider ring won out and I put on my sticker and left.

Raising the Bar

I think we should raise the bar a little bit. There's a lot of buzz about America's students being in the back of the international pack when it comes to education, and I pride myself in being in the front lines of the epic battle for above average standardized test scores. Let's face it, our students are proving that it isn't important to have an IQ higher than your average lawn chair. This dilemma occured to me recently when my friend(who's sixteen and has the same education as I do) asked me, serious as cancer, "Isn't 4th of July the celebration of America's freedom from the Mexicans?" After peeing my pants and choking on my own tears of laughter, it took me every ounce of my discipline not to tell her that she was, in fact, an idiot. And that 4th of July is the celebration of America's freedom from the Germans not the Mexicans. I am personally disgusted at our youth's knowledge about their own country's history.

Later, as I was browsing Sears for a replacement pair of pants, I realized that that wasn't the only example of America's educational prowess, or lack thereof. Here's a couple of other examples that might make you question your comfort of the fact that we are your future. I am not making any of these up:

I was in my friend's basement when my other friend(let's call him Timmy) decided it was time for a workout. Timmy decided that nothing was better than a good hard run to work up a sweat, so he decided a treadmill would be a good place to start. Timmy didn't want a slow pace so he turned the treadmill to the highest speed. After the treadmill was goin full speed he decided it would be a good time to get on. Well let's just say Timmy hit the ground running minus the running part. He figured it wouldn't be necessary to move his legs when jumping on a treadmill set at speed 10. Timmy discovered the flaw in this plan midair and hoped that shouting Whoop would alter his fate, and much to my delight he was wrong. The treadmill kept going for 3 or 4 seconds while the rest of us watched in shock at his stupidity. Finally, someone had the sense to push the stop button. I discovered that our health was suffering about as much as our test scores.

Now you may think that Timmy was just an average kid, and that our honors students can easily compete with whatever Japan can throw at us. Well I'm a male and I have a twin sister that's a female. And a girl at my school (this has happened several times, this girl in particular just happens to be one of the top 10 smartest out of 1000 kids in the class) comes up and asks me if we are identical. And when I politely explained to her that it would be anatomically impossible for reasons I didn't want to explain, she actually tried to justify her question. She told me that we could look exactly the same.

So let's face it, we need to raise the educational bar a little bit. When our school's cream of the crop doesn't know that a boy and girl can't physically be identical, isn't sure if you get on a treadmill before or after you set it to the highest speed, and thinks that the Alamo is an important battle in the Revolutionary War, you know you have a problem. You may ask Axle, what's your solution to all of this? Of course I don't have a solution. I'm sixteen. I'm not ready to solve our country's problems yet. But if you ask, I'm definitely willing to point out my peers' shortcomings.