Silver Case

I bailed out of the office at six tonight and went to Luke’s 6:30 Parent/Teachers meeting. The school wanted to run through the routine with parents and tell us how things have been going. Of course everything is fine. She said Luke is adapting well and (typically) not eating his fruit. I warned the teacher that Luke is a charismatic bullshit artist and had convinced his previous teachers that he had a younger sister in Myanamar and a brother in Bangkok.

Hanging up on the wall of his classroom was all of the students’ self-portrait drawings. I saw fourteen typical kiddie-drawings — tiny ears on giant heads, fuschia pink crayon spots for cheeks, unfathomably baroque anatomy drawings, etc. Then I saw Luke’s. Alas I forgot my handphone in the car, so I could not take a picture, but the best way I could describe it would be as a cross between The Misfits logo and Calvin.

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One of the other things on display was each student’s “Writing Journal.” Luke’s was a swirling mass of crayon scribbles. It perfectly captured his mood, “I don’t like writing or drawing. I want to play with the fireman costumes.” [There's photo evidence to back this up anyway]

During the session the teacher encouraged all the parents to “please write a message for your child in the journal!” Parents became very excited about this. I watched several of them writing long epistles in crayon, drawing elaborate pictures, etc. I’m doubtful any of the children will find it as moving as the parents did.

During the teacher’s presentation I realized what to write and nearly choked myself trying not to laugh till the end of the talk.

Dear Luke:

I am very proud of you. FNORD.

From Dad.

I suppose it’s too much to expect that Auntie Siti the teacher’s aide or Ms. Kathie will be trained to spot this metasyntactic variable.

But it will be good for Luke.

…the interjection “fnord” is given hypnotic power over the unenlightened. Under the Illuminati program, children in grade school are taught to be unable to consciously see the word “fnord”. For the rest of their lives, every appearance of the word subconsciously generates a feeling of uneasiness and confusion, and prevents rational consideration of the subject. This results in a perpetual low-grade state of fear in the populace. This in turn perpetuates the need for Government, because without fear, people don’t need Government.

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