The Ford Focus Ninja

This morning, my car wouldn’t start.

This is a problem that people face every day, there’s nothing particularly surprising or unusual about it, I didn’t think this was any sort of personal attack on me against the universe, and yet at the moment I turned my key and heard that “tktktktktktktktktk” sound instead of my engine running, I could have gleefully shivved a Rabbi for looking at me funny.

I was frustrated, is what I’m saying.

As it turned out, it was the battery. I discounted this possibility at first — it hasn’t been that long since I replaced the battery in my car, I could have sworn. Until I popped the hood and saw the date sticker on it: “02/08.” Okay, maybe it had been a while. Still, that wasn’t too big a deal — replacing a battery is relatively simple and a hell of a lot cheaper than many of the other problems that I probably don’t want to know about. But it did require me to get a jumpstart so I could get to work, only barely making it in on time. I then spent the entire day worried that my car wouldn’t start when I left, and in fact, I’m pretty sure I called one of my students “Car” at second period. Don’t worry, she didn’t notice.

When the school day ended and I walked out to the car, I knew I was in real trouble. My keyless entry, the greatest device ever invented in that it allows us to open all of the doors to our car with the push of a keychain button, thereby saving lots of awkward moments of standing around waiting for someone to open the door for a passenger… it wasn’t working. The battery was even worse than this morning. I couldn’t even hear the “click” telling me the door locks had disengaged. I pounded the button furiously, only to be greeted by cruel, heartless silence.

At first glance, one would think this put me in the same position I was in this morning. But there’s something about my car you may not know. You see, while I have a deep, personal love for my vehicle I can’t pretend she hasn’t seen better days. Particularly her driver’s-side door handle. Which is broken. I haven’t had a chance to get it fixed, and I’m a little anxious about doing so, because you know they’ll basically have to take apart the whole door to do it and then they’ll charge a preposterous amount for a part that is probably worth about 37 cents because of the “labor costs,” and good GOD, you people need to buy more of my books.

Anyway, with the battery too dead to even unlock the passenger or back doors, I suddenly found myself trapped. The car makers of America, in their infinite wisdom, decided that with keyless entry, they were really only obligated to put one lock on the exterior of the car. In the driver’s side door handle. Which, if you’ll recall, is broken.

I couldn’t open the car, couldn’t even reach the release for the hood to try to get another jumpstart or put in a replacement battery, because all of these controls are in the cab. So I began to circle the car, looking at it in the way that men always do, with the preposterous expression on our face that indicates if we just look hard enough suddenly we’ll switch to Predator-style infrared vision with a potential solution lit up in bright red on our viewscreens. The odd thing is, in this case, it actually worked. There was a second lock on the exterior of my car.

The trunk.

A slightly less stupid thing that car manufacturers are doing than eliminating all but the driver’s lock is attaching the trunk directly to the cab via the back seats. Access available. Of course, as those of you know have seen photographs of me know, my mad ninja skills are mostly in the categories of stealth and subversion… not in flexibility.

Still, seeing no other options, I unlocked the trunk, moved my spare tire out of the way, removed the emergency wheel from the back of my car, and climbed in. I wriggled past ancient manilla folders, pushed aside some old painting shoes, found a textbook from when I was obtaining my teaching certification that I don’t think the teacher ever actually used, reached the back of the trunk, pushed, realized I was on the wrong side of the trunk and it’s actually the passenger’s side seat that folds down, wriggled some more, felt my pants catch on something pointy someplace pointy things shouldn’t go, and finally pushed down the seat. I lurched forward, reaching up and into the back seat, grasped the door handle, and pulled.

And still, nothing.

Because the door was still locked.

A little more wriggling until I could find the manual lock by feel (because my body was certainly not bent at an angle that allowed me visual access), opened it up, and finally got the back door open. Reversing my snakelike motions, I got out of the car, climbed in the back, opened up my driver’s door, and finally, triumphantly sat down.

And, because I’m a creature of habit, I put my key in the ignition and turned it.

Silence, my friends, is sometimes the cruelest commentary of them all.

If I had 500 million dollars…

I’ve never played the lottery very much. Vegas style gambling I understand — even if you win just a tiny amount, there’s that instant gratification that makes pulling the lever on the slot machine again oh, so tempting. (I know, they’re all electronic now, no more levers. Allow me my moment of romanticism.) But not so the lottery. You win five bucks playing penny slots, you get pumped and try to win more. You win five bucks playing the lottery, you think, “Hey… five bucks.”

Still, with everybody buzzing about the current MegaMillions jackpot, estimated at a whopping $540 million, it’s hard not to get drawn in. I threw a dollar into my work lottery pool, not because I expect to win but because I can’t risk being the one teacher who isn’t in the pool if they do. And I bought a ticket myself, which I almost never do. Yeah, I know the odds of winning are astronomical — I’ll get struck by lightning while riding an ostrich before I win one of these things. But as bad as the odds are, sooner or later somebody wins. So why not take your chance that it may be you?

Anyway, as I’ve said before, you don’t so much buy a lottery ticket as you buy a one-dollar license to dream about being rich. You can daydream any time you want, of course, but having a lottery ticket in your pocket makes it just a little more tangible, a little more possible, and that makes the dream more satisfying. So I’ve thought about it, about what I would do if I hit that 500 million-plus dollars tonight. And I’ve enjoyed thinking about it…

• First, I do the boring stuff. Pay off loans, credit cards, and so forth. Find a trusted financial advisor to set up some funds that would keep accruing interest and make damn sure no matter how stupid I am I’d never have to worry about money again.
• I know most people say they wouldn’t quit their jobs if they won the lottery, and there’s a good reason for that: they’re liars. I would quit, but not until the end of the semester. It’s not fair to either the students or the school to walk out in the middle of the semester, and I’d feel bad about leaving them in the lurch, so I’d stick it out until June. But man, I’d have FUN those last few months.
• I would make sure my family is taken care of — money for my parents, my brother, my sister, college funds for my nieces. I can afford to share the wealth.
• And then… THEN… I’d start having fun. I’d grab Erin. Get a new car. Get us a house in New Orleans and one in Pittsburgh — nothing super-fancy, mind you, I’ve no desire for a 90-room megamansion, but something nice and comfortable wherever we are whenever we want to be there. Each house would, of course, have an extensive library, networked office, and miniature recording studio (I’m not gonna quit my podcast).
• Buy tickets to San Diego Comic-Con. Yes, I know they’re sold out, but I’ve got FIVE HUNDRED MILLION DOLLARS. I bet I could find one. The same goes for a hotel room.
• Vacation. Go with Erin everywhere we’ve ever wanted to go — Europe, Austrailia, Six Flags over Albuquerque… shoot the works.
• And finally, when we get back home, exhausted but satisfied, I’d make writing full-time my gig. In the time I now spend on a day job, I’d spend it all either writing, reading, watching, or writing about what I’ve watched and read. Which is the sort of thing I love doing most anyway.

Will it happen? Probably not. The skies are clear of thunderheads and I haven’t seen any ostriches to climb on lately. But at least until the numbers are drawn tonight, I get to think, “Why not me?”

And then the numbers will be drawn and it’ll be back to reality. But it’s fun while it lasts.

So play the game, friends. You’ve got half a billion dollars burning a hole in your pocket. What do you do?

Why I don’t talk politics online

If you don’t know me in the real world — that is, if our interactions away from the computer have been limited or nonexistent — you may not know much about my political beliefs. You shouldn’t make the mistake of thinking this means I don’t have political beliefs, that I’m apathetic about the state of our nation, or that I’m generally uninformed. None of those statements about me are true. I don’t spend much time online talking about my politics, and for several reasons… but as I look at the Twitter feeds and Facebook updates of my friends lately, I find that most of the reasons I keep my politics to myself boil down to the same thing: it doesn’t change anything.

It’s an election year, of course, so one can expect the political discourse to be ramped up. And that would be okay, in and of itself, but the more political conversation I see online, the more convinced I become that people — people I like, people I respect – have some sort of failsafe switch in their brain that malfunctions every time politics comes up and they turn into raging jackasses. I see kind, sweet people gleefully posting about the misfortune or even death of someone they happen to disagree with, devolving into online shouting matches that make the people on either side of the aisle seem stupid and intolerant. I see childish name-calling and venomous, vitriolic statements that say far more about the person talking than the person they’re talking about. I see people who should be friends reduced to bitter, hated rivals because they disagree about this bill or that issue or this politician or that religion.

I’ve had lots of friends in my life with different political beliefs than my own. I’ve also learned quickly in each relationship who I could safely discuss those differences with without running the risk of causing a blood vessel to erupt in their brain. Some people are perfectly capable of having a calm, reasoned discussion with someone on the other side of the fence. Most people, sadly, are not, and as that is the only kind of conversation I would have any interest in having, I instead try to avoid it entirely.

There are lots of people I follow online because I value what they have to say about movies, books, comics, or just because they’re funny or endearing to me. But I also know that when they get into politics, it’s time for me to leave the conversation, because invariably their discussion turns into a screed against people they hatehatehate because they’re so evil and corrupt and wrong and, of course, because anybody who does not automatically agree that these people are eeeeeeevil (here you have to imagine a silent movie villain twirling a nine-inch long mustache for complete effect) is clearly just as evil as anybody else and it’s time to hate them too.

And it churns. My. Stomach.

Because if there’s anything else I disagree with politically, I don’t think there’s anything I disagree with as fervently as this:

Having a different opinion than you does not make someone bad.

Someone who disagrees with a liberal is not automatically a greedy, homophobic, misogynistic racist. Someone who disagrees with a conservative is not automatically a brainless, spoon-fed, spineless communist. Any somebody who disagrees with you is no less of a person for arriving at their own opinion.

I think that’s the thing that infuriates me the most — the intellectual superiority of some people, this notion that nobody could possibly hold a different opinion they do without being an absolute idiot. It never occurs to them that a thinking, reasoned individual would look at circumstances and arrive at a different conclusion than they did. My favorite has to be when someone goes off on some polemic or another and then invites anybody who disagrees with them to unfollow them or drop them from their friends list. They, of course, relish the idea of seeing their number of friends drop, because they will automatically take that to mean they are purging their lists of people who are mustache-twirling evildoers and not people who are just fed up with listening to their horsecrap. They’ll put up links to YouTube videos (carefully edited by someone with the same bias as the person posting it, of course) and columns (written, again, by someone who already shares their opinion) and kick it off by saying some of the most vile, angry things I can imagine, things that would have them ready to grab torches and pitchforks if someone on the other side said the same thing about somebody on their side. But it’s okay to do that, of course, because anyone who’s not on their side is obviously stupid and subhuman and therefore not worth having as a friend anyway.

And it’s that sort of conceited intellectualism that makes me want to walk away from political conversations altogether.

The funny thing, of course, is that if any of the people most guilty of this sort of behavior happen to read this post, they’ll just nod along, because it would never occur to them that they are guilty. I’m tired of the anger, I’m tired of the bile, I’m tired of the hatred among people I otherwise like. And if you read that sentence and thought, “Yeah, that’s exactly what [Insert Political Affiliation] are like,” congratulations. I’m talking about you.

The worst part is I know it’s only going to get increasingly hostile, mean-spirited, and possibly violent between now and November. If I could somehow install an app on my computer that would filter all political talk from Facebook and Twitter and leave me with the fun and useful stuff that drew me to those sites in the first place, I would gladly do it.

I don’t want a chilling effect on political discourse. It’s important, it’s necessary in a free society to be able to exchange ideas and be exposed to opposing viewpoints.

I just wish we could do it without turning to third-grade name-calling or high school venom.

So if you don’t mind, don’t ask me what I think about any politician or any issue or any election or any ballot initiative from now until November. I’ve made up my mind, I’m intelligent enough to do that, and I have no desire to trade blows with anybody about it. Instead, I’ll use this page (and any other page I have) to talk about comics and movies and my friends and my family — in other words, the things in life that actually bring me joy, instead of those things that make me sad for anyone incapable of allowing another side to exist.

Things You Say That Irritate Language Nerds: Part II

Several people chimed in to tell me they enjoyed my “Things You Say That Irritate Language Nerds” post from a few days ago, and that they wanted more. Never let it be said that I’m above blatantly pandering for attention, friends. I’m stepping up with another installment. But I’m also in a bit of a rush today — Erin is coming in for Mardi Gras, so I don’t have too long to spend on this one. I’m afraid today’s gripe is a bit of a softball…

Today’s Episode: “I could care less…”

You’ve probably noticed this yourself, how this phrase doesn’t really make any sense, but I’m sure many of you have never quite stopped to think about what’s wrong with it. That’s why I’m here, friends.

When someone says “I could care less,” they are typically using the phrase in a derisive way, so as to indicate they do not care at all about whatever the topic of conversation is:

EXAMPLE 1:

BOB: “Hey, did you hear that the Lions are in town?”
BILL: “I could care less about football.”
BOB: “Actually, I meant literal Lions. They’re eating your grandmother right now.”

In this exchange, Bill’s intention is to indicate that he does not care about football. But that’s not what he’s saying. He’s saying “I could care less.” This means that on some level he has to care, because otherwise, caring less would be impossible. Whether he cares just a teeny bit or whether he cares immensely is unknown, because by its very nature this statement could be applied at any point of the caring spectrum above zero percent.

To illustrate this point, imagine a large plate of bacon. Bob has just cooked an entire slab and, unless Bill is a godless communist, he’s going to want some.

EXAMPLE 2:

BOB: “Hey, Bill, want some bacon?”
BILL: “I could eat some bacon.”

And he can. Because the bacon is there and Bob is kind enough to offer some to Bill, even though he was kind of a pretentious jerk in Example 1. So Bob and Bill go back and forth until, alas, there is no more bacon. This is a sad event in anyone’s life, of course, but it’s inevitable, as the natural consequence of the existence of bacon is that people will eat bacon until there is no more bacon to be eaten. But Bill, whose phone rang during the meal and he had to step outside because he didn’t want his Vegan girlfriend to hear the sound of bacon being chewed, is unaware of this when he returns to the room.

EXAMPLE 3:

BILL: “Can I have some more bacon?”
BOB: “I couldn’t give you more bacon.”

And Bob can’t. Because the bacon is gone. And now everybody is sad.

Anyway, try to imagine that “caring” is something that could be counted physically, like strips of crispy bacon. If Bill says “I couldn’t care less,” he’s saying that there is no caring to be had in regards to the subject at hand, which is what the person who says this always means. But when Bill says, “I could care less,” he is implying that there are, in fact, strips of caring still available, which is clearly not what he intends.

So, to summarize:

• Say “I couldn’t care less” if the point you’re trying to make is that you don’t care about a subject.
• Only say “I could care less” if the subject is something you have feelings about, but wish that you didn’t. Basically, this is the attitude of the film Brokeback Mountain.
• Now that the bacon is gone, it’s Bill’s turn to supply the next plate of bacon. It’s only fair.

Things You Say That Irritate Language Nerds: Part I

I am, as I’m pretty sure I’ve mentioned before, a high school English teacher. As such, I have a greater-than-average awareness of language, punctuation, and correct word choice. And although I try not to be an utter grammar Nazi about it, there are some things people say that are so blatantly incorrect that it makes me want to slap them with a cold fish.

This will undoubtedly be a series.

Today’s episode: “You have two choices…”

I hear this all the time. On TV. In the movies. Around the halls of my school. And frequently said by people who are, in fact, very intelligent. Despite this, they go forth with this horribly incorrect phrase.

• “You have two choices… live or die.”
• “You have two choices… study hard and pass, or slack off and fail.”
• “You have two choices… chocolate with Bavarian Cream or the engine block of a 1972 Studebaker.”

In all of these situations, the person being spoken to is told he must make two choices. But he doesn’t. He has one choice. He has two options. If a person is being told he must choose between life or death, there is only that one choice — life or death. The choice is the action — the single action, mind you — of selecting between the available options. This is true no matter how many options a person has.

• “You have six choices… life, death, a guided tour of the Wonka chocolate factory, electrolysis for that thing on your lip, a package of AAA batteries and a partridge in a pear tree.”

This person still only has one choice to make, because he is being given the option of choosing between these six items. Also, the person giving him this option is either patently insane or the host of the strangest version of Let’s Make a Deal in history. Which I admit may be the same thing.

Here’s a case where a person actually has two choices:

• “You have two choices… save the baby’s life or allow him to grow up to be Hitler. Also, do you want fries with that?”

In this situation, the person being presented with the choice has two decisions to make. Will he allow an innocent baby to die even knowing he will eventually become history’s greatest monster? Plus — hey, fries? These are the sorts of moral implications that can weigh on a person for the rest of his life, especially if you start to consider such vital factors as “curly,” “battered,” or “cajun-style.”

But these four options come with two choices, not four, as some people will undoubtedly say.

Here’s an easy way to remember. When facing the situation, ask yourself how many decisions a person has to make. “Cake or pie” is one decision, which means one choice, which really means no choice because pie almost always wins. Unless it’s ice cream cake.

To summarize:

• The number of choices is equal to the number of decisions, not the number of options.
• Increasing the number of options has no effect on the number of choices that must be made.
• Pie always trumps non-ice cream cake.

Weird Karma

1. My sister, Heather, finally has time to finish the cover for The Beginner, and a spiffy job she does of it, too.
2. A friend of mine contacts me out of the blue to ask if I’d be willing to arrange a podcast interview with the writer of an upcoming comic book that I’m actually quite excited about.
3. Another friend of mine contacts me to offer to help set up something very cool for Other People’s Heroes.
4. My iPod suddenly stops synching to my computer or drawing power. A quick glance confirms some of the little bendy things (I looked it up, this is the technical term) inside the port where I plug it in are inexplicably bent.

On the other hand, I suppose if I’ve got to get hit with a problem to balance out the goodness of the last few days, I should be pretty grateful it’s so relatively minor.

It’s spreading…

As a teacher, I pride myself on my ability to help students relate elements of classic fiction to things that are relevant to them. As such, I never hesitate to make appropriate comparisons to contemporary movies, television shows, or other things from pop culture if I think it will help the student understand the point I’m trying to make.

Some days, the students do the work for me.

Today, I was discussing the concept of a “flashback,” explaining that it is a scene that is shown during the story that actually takes place at an earlier point in the timeline, often used to explain the characters’ history or backstory. Before I can give an example, a student shouts out:

“Like that guy on Phineas and Ferb!”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

He then proceeded to explain to the class how Dr. Doofenshmirtz, upon capturing Perry the Platypus, would then begin to explain how some horrible event from his past influenced the creation of today’s invention. But he didn’t need to go into all that. He already got his “A.”

Dangerous Hiring Practices

I love Snowballs.

For those of you who don’t live in New Orleans and think I’ve finally flipped my gourd, allow me to explain.

A “Snowball” is a frozen treat made of very finely shaved ice topped with flavored syrup. Now, those of you who live in the north are probably saying, “Oh, he means a Sno-Cone.” No, my friends. No. A Sno-Cone, with all due respect, is not fit to melt at the foot of a New Orleans-style Snowball Stand. The ice is shaved much finer, the syrup filtering down into every nook and cranny, and if you add a bonus topping such as condensed milk… this is the frozen snack food of the gods. (Literally. It’s not a coincidence that every Snowball Stand in Louisiana offers “nectar” as a standard flavor option.) It’s a treat so emblematic of our region that local jeweler Mignon Faget created a line of pendants based on the Snowball, and I gave one to Erin for her birthday, and her niece tried to eat it.

That’s how good they are.

I could easily devour these things every day, but in an act of extreme self-control and denial, I typically manage to restrict my intake to one every week or two. The issue, therefore, is that since I don’t get them as often as I would like, there are a great many flavors that don’t quite make my rotation. That becomes even more complicated by the fact that the best Snowball Stand on my route home from work happens to employ a very large, bemuscled gentleman with a beard that makes mine feel bad about itself. Don’t get me wrong, he’s a very friendly chap and highly competent at his job. But when I step up to the stand to order from this guy who looks like he may have taken my lunch money in high school, I look at the menu of nearly thirty delectable flavors and find myself incapable of ordering anything that would make me sound too much like a wuss.

You can’t go up to a dude this size and order a “Margarita” flavored Snowball. Or a “Pina Colada.” Or, god forbid, “Passion Fruit.” You have to stay with very basic flavors. “Grape” is safe, or “Orange,” or “Lemon.” You can get away with “Green Apple,” since there’s an implied sourness to the flavor, but for the most part, you’re restricted to the flavors you would get if you bought a pack of eight scented markers, because if you look a dude like this in the eye and ordered a “Strawberry Cheesecake” flavored Snowball, you just freaking know you’d be walking away from that stand with a wedgie.

So on behalf of other insecure males everywhere, I have a request to make of the Snowball Stand operators of New Orleans: stop hiring people tougher than us. The following are acceptable concession workers, because they are in no way threatening and therefore safe to order a Dreamsicle Snowball from:

• Young mothers whose only reaction to any given flavor will be to tell you how their 14-month-old reacted when they let them try it.
• Teenagers who are still immature enough that you suspect they’re pouring the syrup on the counter and trying to conjure up ant races when business is slow.
• Somebody’s grandmother. Anybody’s grandmother, really.
• Males that are a minimum of 18 inches shorter than me, provided they have not earned a belt in any documented martial art and possess a maximum of three bladed weapons. (Sorry, Kenny.)
• Emmanuel Lewis.

With any of these individuals helming your frozen snack enterprise, your business shall rise exponentially. At least at the stand closest to my home. Thank you for your consideration.

Blake M. Petit is the author of the superhero comedy novel, Other People’s Heroes, the upcoming suspense novel The Beginner and the Christmas-themed eBook A Long November. He’s also the co-host, with whoever the hell is available that week, of the 2 in 1 Showcase Podcast. E-mail him at BlakeMPetit@gmail.com.

If Phineas and Ferb were in the Marvel Universe…

Reed Richards, leader of the Fantastic Four, has started a new initiative called the Future Foundation. In this new FF, Reed has recruited genius children to pool their minds and create projects that will make the world a better place.

Marvel Comics is owned by Disney.

Which of course leads to an obvious question…

WHY HASN’T REED RICHARDS RECRUITED PHINEAS AND FERB?

Think about this. Phineas Flynn and Ferb Fletcher, over the course of a single summer, have created an arsenal of devices, inventions, and experiments that could change the course of human history:

• Rocketships that can reach other stars and return in a single day.
• Robots including (but not limited to) duplicates of themselves, mechanical bulls, a giant dog, and fighting treehouse-bots.
• Remote-controlled flying baseballs.
• A suit of superhero armor.
• A shrinking ray.
• 

  Also, they're one-hit wonders.

  An enormous mechanical shark.

• A portal to Mars.
• An all-terrain vehicle that can literally go on all terrains.
• Hologram projectors that create an environment indistinguishable from reality.
• Soap bubbles strong enough to carry several people miles through the air.
• The tallest building on the planet (it reached the moon).
• A flying carpet.
• A time machine. (Technically they didn’t invent the time machine, they just repaired one left behind by an earlier time-traveler. But let’s see you do that.)
• Sentient “Aqua Primates” (Sea Monkeys) grown to the size of an adult human.
• A cell phone with the ability to teleport a person via voice-command.
• Enormous bowling balls controlled from a interior cockpit stabilized by an internal gyroscope.
• The best-tasting ice cream in the world (made by milking cows on the moon).

Surely, Reed Richards could see the potential of these creations (especially that last one) in changing transportation, communication, entertainment, and all other areas of human endeavor. So why hasn’t he recruited them? My buddy Adam (of the Rebelcomix blog) suggests that it’s an issue of pride. Reed is a genius, but often lacks imagination. Having Phineas and Ferb around, Adam suggests, would embarass him. And I think he may have a point.

I imagine the interaction going something like this:

REED: Welcome to the Future Foundation, boys.

PHINEAS: Thanks for having us, Dr. R.

REED: Let me introduce you to the rest of the team. This is my wife, Susan…

SUE: Let me get you some snacks.

REED: …our newest member, the amazing Spider-Man…

SPIDEY: You know, you remind me of myself at your age. If my head was pointier.

REED: …and of course, my oldest friend, Benjamin Grimm.

PHINEAS: Whoa, it’s the Thing!

BEN: Heya, shrimp.

PHINEAS: Mr. Grimm, is it true that you can never change back to your human form?

BEN: Yep. Stretcho’s been tryin’ to figure out a way to change my body back ever since we got turned… nothin’ works.

PHINEAS: Golly, Dr. R — why don’t you just clone him a new human body and transfer his consciousness into that one?

REED: Well, because… because…

(long pause)

BEN: Would… would that work?

REED: Why… I think it might.

BEN: You mean ta tell me you’ve spent nearly fifty years tryin’ to change this body back, when you coulda just grown me a new body at any time?

REED: Well–

BEN: You mean ta tell me it took these kids twelve seconds ta solve a problem you’ve been workin’ on since 1961?

REED: Ben, calm down–

BEN: CALM DOWN? CALM DOWN? I’ll show ya “CALM DOWN”!

(Ben smashes several walls storming his way out of the Baxter Building. Everybody watches him go.)

FERB: Would this be a bad time to bring up the Skrull detector we invented? Right. Later, then.

Students ahoy!

The first two days of a new school year are a snap. This is largely because the students haven’t arrived yet. Mine come back tomorrow.

(Yes, on a Friday. No, I don’t know why.)

But I’m feeling good. This year, for the first time, the only course I’ll be teaching will be English III (alias American Literature), with half of my classes being set aside for honors students. I’m excited about this. I won’t lie to you — nobody (teacher or student) is ever happy to get back to work after a blissful summer off, but I feel more optimistic about this year than I have many years past.

Please don’t burst my bubble. I’m still blowing it up.