Teaching to the Choir

I’m Art Kumbalek and man oh manischewitz what a world, ain’a? So listen, I hear it’s mid-April all right already of this year 2021, and we have neither yet to be struck down by a novelishly new-out-of-the-blue pandemic that would make the deadly schmutz of the COVID seem like a cakewalk on the picnic beach with seashells and a balloon nor have we so-called intelligent species of the Homo sapien variety been carved up—lock, stock and barrel—to serve as brunch or dinner for conquering ass-ripping marauding aliens from outer space on a visit to this planet we call Earth. I’m guessing you can count that as good news, what the fock.

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Art Kumbalek

Anyways, what with our young people’s school (what there is of it) graduation season soon to be upon us next month, I am behooved to remind all you’s administrators and educators out there to plan ahead, and to be aware that I am definitely available to swing by your sheepskin shindig—socially distanced, ’natch—and do a little speechifying, masked, of course. Fifty bucks and a case of ice-cold bottled beer and I’m there, maybe even on time, I kid you not.

But it strikes me that school education seems all akimbo, lo, these days of virtual, Zoom, stay-at-home. But tests there shall be, and some know-it-alls got their dandruff up in a bundle over these standardized school tests our young Einsteins could get crammed down their yaps, and that the result of production-line testing is to dunce down the subjects kids are supposed to learn, ’cause these fascist tests are all about scoring scores and not about scoring better learning. Or something like that.

(I do remember from school testing, you betcha. My sternest test being how to successfully cut class back in the day at Our Lady In Pain Because You Kids Are Going Straight To Hell But Not Soon Enough in the early afternoon at the top of a month ’cause that’s when the drugstore up on Packard Avenue would receive the new editions of the various Marvel Comics franchises. I was driven and motivated to be first on my block to learn who-the-fock the Incredible Hulk clobbered to hell-and-back that month. Knowledge, at any age and for whatever reason has value so I’ve heard, what the fock.)

So, I’ll bet you a buck two-eighty that a lot of your old-school adult knuckleheads hear “standardized testing”—if they hear anything at all these days—and say, “Boo-hoo, big focking deal. That’s their job, to take tests in school. Just like for me, my suck-ass job, if I had a job, would be to take a lot of crap for eight underpaid hours, so shut up.”

If that’s your attitude, mister, then Art’s got his own little standardized test he’d like to administer for your enlightenment, and let’s just see how well you bozos score, shall we?

Math

A simple farmer had completed seven miles of his 23-mile round trip with six and one half-dozen eggs when his 1963 forest-green Dodge pickup truck with bad front shocks had a flat tire three miles shy of the junction of Highway 61 and Peckerwood Drive at 1:47 p.m. Now if it took the simple farmer 28 minutes and 12 seconds to change the flat, and between one-fourth and three-sevenths of the eggs suffered shell damage, how much per kilowatt hour does the simple farmer pay for electricity and why is it that fools fall in love?

Science

The insect belonging to the order Lepidoptera known as the moth is primarily active at night, so could you kindly explain to my satisfaction why is it that the first thing these goddamn bugs do is fly to the nearest focking light source?

Shop

If cedar chests are made of cedar, what the fock are coffee tables made of then, Mr. Smarty-pants?

Writing Skills

(The dreaded essay question, here. Feel free to bullshit like there’s no tomorrow, but please cite your sources.)

Compare, contrast, trace and illuminate the rise of laissez-faire social amenities from the ancient Zoroastrians through the birth of Christ to the time of the Franco-Prussian War as reflected in the work of Benedict de Spinoza, Jean Jacques Rousseau, Martin Heidegger and Chic Young.

Reading Comprehension

A middle-aged guy and his wife are run off the road about three miles shy of the junction of Highway 61 and Peckerwood Drive (a notoriously dangerous intersection for sure, see above) one afternoon by some stupid drunk-ass farmer in an old pickup truck who had swerved into their lane for no apparent reason. The guy is killed instantly but his wife survives. So he gets up to the Pearly Gates where stands St. Peter barring the door, who says to the guy, “My son, you may pass through these gates into Heaven if you are able to spell one simple word for me, and that word is ‘love.’”

The guy thinks this must be some kind of trick ’cause it really couldn’t be that easy to get into Heaven, could it? But he decides to play along and says, “Love. L-O-V-E. Love.” And St. Peter says, “Yes. That is correct. You are free to pass through these gates.” Bam! The gates open and the guy’s home free.”

But St. Peter has a request to make. “My son, I beseech thee to cover my ass at the gates for a moment, since I’ve been standing here since early morn and now desire to take a monster leak. All you need do should anyone approach is to ask them to spell one simple word, and that word is ‘love.’”

The guy consents and wouldn’t you know, the first person to approach is his wife. “What are you doing up here? I thought you survived the accident,” the guy says. And she says, “I did only for a few minutes, but I hemorrhaged to death on the way to the hospital. Where’s St. Peter?”

And the guy says, “He’ll be back in a jiff, but I can let you in provided you can spell one simple word, and that word is:__________.”

(Choose from the following list the word this man asked his wife to spell to allow her into Heaven that they may spend all eternity, and then some, together.)

1. Czechoslovakia
2. Deoxyribonucleic
3. succedaneum

So there you go. Please remember to use a No. 2 pencil only. I expect your answers on my desk no later than the day this essay is thrown-up online, whenever the hell that is. Hey, you focking figure it out if you’re so smart, ’cause I’m Art Kumbalek and I told you so.