Tao of Scott

Hi Nichole,

Kathy got drunk.

As you know gardening has led Kathy into a depression of medium depth, however we agreed to continue with the chemical free yard so together we forge forward in futility.

The next day I look out the window and there’s Kathy, out at the rose bed, applying some kind of granule wearing a HAZMAT suite.”

“I thought we had established that we would adhere to a scrupulous regimen of purely organic fertilizers as well as pest and disease abatements?” I said sorta perplexed.

“The yard will be pretty now,” Kathy assured me.

“Oh, OK.” I buckled.

We had to get ready to go to Hailey’s high school graduation so I hopped in the shower and Kathy hopped in the de-contamination chamber. We met up with Chris (Hailey’s dad), Hailey’s sister Loren and her boyfriend Nigel. Loren and Nigel came out from L.A. resplendent in multi- colored hair, numerous tattoos, and earring holes large enough to park an AMTRAC car in. They thankfully left the ferrets at home. They were surprised to find out that they did not stand out in the crowd.

“How could this be?” Nigel queried.

“T.V.” I instructed.

We gazed out over the graduating class of 2009. About 150 students, a podium populated by sundry high school dignitaries, an open football field, open ranch land, out past a national wilderness preserve, and finally to the San Francisco peaks 70 miles (as the crow flies) to the northeast all under a crystal clear sky studded with orange, red and pink glowing desert sunset clouds. Chris said this, heart of America, small town scene was right out of “America Graffiti” (Re: the classic film by George Lukas. Breakout roles for George the director as well as, Harrison Ford and Richard Dreyfuss).

So what appears to be the principal of the school takes the podium and proceeds to read, never lifting his eyes to the audience, a speech so poorly constructed and ill rehearsed that to listen to it amounted to a torture so evil, so vile, that the CIA would have been shamed into permanent hiding for being so wimpy in their techniques. This guy seemed to believe that the word at the end of the line, you know over at the right margin of the page, was actually the end of the sentence. Every line was read accordingly. To say that this message to the hopeful students and proud parents was unintelligible would be gracious at the very least.

Then, in one of the most stupefying displays of linguistic befuddlement ever witnessed out side of a state hospital day room, the most popular teacher in the school (as the story goes) stood and ambled over to the podium. As her hair continually blew into her mouth and her green dress billowed up repeatedly, not quite but nearly pornographically I might add, she launched into a spoken word train wreck that somehow managed to dive under the snake’s belly in a wagon wheel rut standard just set by the principal. All singulars were made plural, all plurals were made singular, she couldn’t conjugate a verb with a gun to her head, and all of this punctuated by spates of sniffling and whimpering as her voice rose to the finale where she chocked her way through a bowl of verbal slop designed to rouse even the most jaded heart in support of these bright, beaming students.

There then followed three student speakers. Each delivered beautifully structured, well rehearsed speeches infused with clever humor and touching notes of longing for the wonderful memories recently shared with their fellow class mates. Each of these sturdy, confident young minds reached into a future, though fraught with potential difficulties, armed with grace, dignity, and boundless hope. Clearly these young people and all of their class mates had gotten a fine public school education in spite of the dip shit teachers and administrators with whom they had been saddled.

Handing over the reigns of the culture to these young citizens will be my pleasure. If this is the future then America is not going to hell in a hand basket.

As we were leaving the stadium we passed two perfectly spherical kids. The girl, wearing a black and white zebra striped tank top and microscopic shorts, was lying on the grass with her huge fleshy legs stuck in the air saying, “ Looky, stars!” As I averted my eyes I got a gander at her male counterpart. He was attired in a Megadeath t-shirt, covered with a vastly oversized flannel shirt, huge sneakers and the obligatory backwards baseball hat. He just picked his nose in response to his companion’s discovery.

Love dad