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As we stretch and inhale deliciously warm breezes, we lazily drift into yet another long, luxurious summer …
Hold on a second. It's what month? What happened to June and July? Did we skip them?
Well, then, as we madly charge through stores, clutching shopping lists the length of term papers, we quake in panic as we realize it's nearly time for young kids to board buses, older kids to move into dorms and parents to add up enough debt to blow out three calculators and a slide rule.
I hope one of the things my grandson learns this year is why when I was kid weeks dragged on for at least 32 days -- double that for the three weeks before Christmas -- but now they whiz past in barely four or five days. Then he can explain it to me.
And I'll tell him all about how we used to ride dinosaurs to one-room caves, chiseled our homework on rocks and used a stone hammer for a delete key. We didn't have history class -- it was called current events.
But some things never change.
Just like happens today, when the brontosaurus dropped me off at our shelter after my first day of school, Mom asked, "What did you learn today?"
"Not enough," I said. "I have to go back tomorrow."
It was Rex, my pet tyrannosaurus, who ate my homework. Rex would eat anything -- especially if you slathered it in peanut butter.
Today, it's Ariel, my grandson's puppy, who eats his homework.
I feel sorry for kids without pets. They have to eat their own homework.
Ha. A little playground humor there. We spent hours regaling each other with stupid jokes. It annoyed our teachers, who said recess was over.
"Why was 6 afraid of 7?" Og asked us cave kids. "Because 7 8 9." We laughed ourselves silly. I had a laugh all over again when I finally got the joke. Last year. Things didn't need to make sense. We laughed over anything.
Maybe that's what made time crawl so slowly back then. Maybe laughter stalls clocks and adds pages to calendars.
Or maybe not, but it's worth a try:
* "Hey, Mom, we played a guessing game in school today."
"I thought you had a math test today."
"That's what I said."
* "Dad, I think we need a new teacher."
"Why's that, son?"
"The one we have doesn't know anything. She keeps asking us for the answers."
* What kind of candy do you find in every school?
Nerds, Dum Dums and Smarties.
* What's a teacher's favorite nation?
Expla-nation.
* Why is the math book so unhappy?
It's full of problems.
* If H2O is the formula for water, what is the formula for ice?
H2O cubed.
* What scared Mr. Bubbles at school?
Pop quizzes.
* What kind of tree does a math teacher climb?
A geometry.
* "Why is your homework in your dad's handwriting?"
"I used his pen."
* "Please pay a little attention in class."
"But teacher, I'm paying as little attention as I can."
OK, recess is over. Finish that back-to-school shopping -- because by a week from Tuesday, it'll probably be Christmas already.
— Get out your slate and copy your homework to Cole at burtseyeview@tribtoday.com or on the Burton W. Cole page on Facebook.