The Dunce Macabre

×

Expand

I’m Art Kumbalek and man oh manischewitz what a world, ain’a? So listen, the other day I read a newspaper article all about how piss-poor our young scholastic Einsteins have been scoring on tests for reading, arithmetic and what-not.

Results are not copacetic, I kid you not; although, gym-class dodgeball acumen could raise the overall score if they ever decided to test for such a skill, not to mention rope climbing or bass clarinet proficiency in band class if non-suburban schools could afford a school band so’s to hack their way through Shostakovich’s finale to the 5th Symphony.

Discouraged, I decided to fire up the internet machine with hopes that I would not go down such a rabbit hole as “You Won’t Believe What 1980s Celebrities Look Like Today.”

And so I stumbled upon this:

msn.com/en-us/news/technology/homo-erectus-and-neanderthals-may-have-been-the-first-humans-to-do-math/ar-AA1H2LEk

Just you’s know, here’s the headline:

Homo Erectus And Neanderthals May Have Been The First Humans To Do Math

(Hope you can find this article from iflscience.com ’cause my ability to slap down effective internet links is akin to a fifth-graders ability to find the area of an isosceles triangle given that FU=WTF-X-LOL.)

Numerical thinking seems to be a bugaboo. And yet 1.7 million years ago, this Homo erectus crew figured out numbers without having the strain of balancing a checking account or computing a baseball pitcher’s WHIP (Walks Plus Hits Per Inning Pitched) and now our modern-day youngins have trouble navigating the multiplication tables? To quote Sir Isaac Newton: “What the fock?”

What can a concerned citizen do? Hey, how ’bout some dusty blather from an ancient geek, plus fifty bucks and a case of ice-cold bottled beer and I’ll come by and deliver the whole enchi-focking-lada to your katzenjammers personally:

Art’s Annual Address to All Young Matriculators and What the Fock, Fatriculators To Boot

Welcome knuckleheads, I know I’m a tad tardy with my words of wisdom for you’s, but I can count on no fingers the number of times I was on time for class back at Our Lady In Pain That You Kids Are Going Straight To Hell But Not Soon Enough, so zip it and please be seated.

Begging the patience of you older students, allow me to get my remarks to the little kids out of the way first before they get too antsy since I imagine they may have this read to them at family time.

Toddlers, please listen carefully because I’m only going to say this once. And come to think of it, this may very well apply to a goodly portion of you older kids, to boot: SNOT IS NOT A SNACK FOOD, è chiaro? If you persist in the belief, not to mention practice, that snot is a snack food, then you can flush your future down the toilet right this minute and learn how to spend the night on a park bench, I kid you not.

And on another note, if you happen to be the offspring of parents who believe that TV/screen is not a babysitter, hey, I feel your pain. You bet that sucks. I guess they don’t realize that limiting TV/screen time will only lead to delinquent behavior and the development of bad habits ’cause just what the hell are you supposed to do when mom or pop declare the TV/screen be off and/or off-limits? Some of that butt-boring “creative” play they read about in a book? Yeah, that’s good for about five focking minutes and then it’s “so now what?” Dad won’t let you dick around with any of the power tools and you’re too young to go to a bar by yourself and watch the TV they got there. And if your family’s got dough enough to have computers with internet all around the house, big focking deal ’cause your parents got the contraptions more blocked up than the arteries to a fat guy’s heart so that the only site you can get through to is www.dork.smileyface.

So there you sit and the next thing you know your little brother or sister has a black eye, the knuckles on your right hand sting, and you’re getting the ever-lovin’ tar spanked clean out of you with the smooth side of a hairbrush. And the kick in the hinder is that it seems only you realize that all this strife could be avoided and peace maintained if only they let you see as much TV/screen as humanly possible.

When will they learn? Hey, as soon as you empower yourself by increasing your tiny vocabulary. Ask a legal guardian to look up the word “caterwaul” for you in the dictionary, and then put its definition into practice every time they turn off the TV/screen on you.

So you see, any way you slice it from any age, knowledge is power, you bet your sweet ass.

And now as far as you older students, I’ll make my pronouncements brief ’cause I know like everything else, it’s just going to go in one ear and out the other ’til I’m blue in the face since you’ve heard it all before haven’t you, you bunch of smartasses. And just so you know, I’m a believer in the notion that to get respect you got to give respect, so I will refrain from comments on the weird-ass clothes and focked-up hair you choose to defend yourselves with. So relax, and smoke ’em if you know somebody old enough to go get ’em.

Now, the best thing you’s can do about school is to quit your bellyache bitching about it. I know it’s tough, it stinks, it’s no fun, it feels like a prison (and for some of you who feel that way, take heart: The day may come when you will reflect back on these days as a valuable preparatory experience as you cool your heels in the cooler).

And I know you’ve got one hell of a lot to learn, compared to if you had to go to school, say, 2,000 years ago. For example, how hard could geography have been back then? For crying out loud they only had like about a couple, three countries, I kid you not. Piece of focking cake. As far as history goes, those people were born yesterday compared to what you all got to memorize these days, so there’s another guaranteed focking A. Hey, English Lit? Mighty slim reading list, wouldn’t you say? Ought to be one big breeze, I figure.

So yeah, you can’t wait to get out, sooner or later, ain’a? Hate to bring you down, but guess what? There is no such thing as getting out. Ha! Once you get out of regular school you learn life’s really nothing but one big honking school you go to day-in, day-out where you’re going to learn something each and every day whether you like it or not. Like it or lump it.

So the best advice I got for you’s is to brush your teeth and stay in school any way you can, the best you can. And that goes for all of you’s ’cause I'm Art Kumbalek and I told you so.