Sometimes you laugh a lot...

Today was one of those days that I just found the funny in everything. I'm usually a pretty happy-go-lucky kinda gal, but today just went beyond.

I woke up all pissy. Why? Because I had to get up at the ass-crack of the morning to judge what I was told was to be a poetry competition for the Chicago Public Schools Area 4. I got there and found out it was the Academic Decathlon's Oratory competition. That changed things a bit, it made things a bit more interesting. Apparently, I was the "celebrity" judge. The other two judges were retired educators.

I took off my hoodie and three of the kids in the room said, "Cool, check out her tattoos!" It made me smile. I had apparently gotten there an hour early, so I sat and read through the rules of the competition, looked at the judging sheets, and finally at the material that the kids were going to recite. That's when I lost it.

Almost every one of the kids was going to recite a eulogy. In case there is someone out there who is unaware of what a eulogy is, it's the speech that is given at a funeral about the deceased. I was about to watch a bunch of middle school kids give eulogies. In essence, I was going to judge a marathon funeral. I couldn't stop laughing.

Both of the girls who won, were the only two who DIDN'T recite eulogies. Let that be a lesson to anyone out there about to join an oratory competition - stay away from the funeral speech.

During lunch, the principal of the school was sitting at our table and called out to one of the students, "Crochet, why aren't you wearing any shoes?" I blinked, CROCHET? Really, the kid's name is CROCHET? It brought to mind a story that my friend Katy told about a child named Abcde, pronounced "Absidee." I told the story and we went around the room talking about the names that the teachers in the room had heard over the years. Courvoisier, Brandy Alexander, Obamanique Michelle... I had to laugh.

Later in the day I had an appointment with Scott Fricke to get tattooed. We laughed a lot during the session, but when I came to the topic of the children's names he told me something hilarious. A friend of his girlfriend had a student in her class named Chantell. However, the teacher had to gesticulate with her hands during pronunciation of this name or the child wouldn't respond. Why, you might ask? Because the child's name included a swoosh of the hand at the end. Seriously. I died.

Licenses for parents. It's been said before and I'll say it again. There should be a law. Kids should be protected from this naming problem. Except of course for the child that might be named Megatron. Yes, read about that here.