Tonight I learned that my kids recite the "Pleasure of Allegiance" over the loudspeaker, fully with left hand on heart and right hand in the air kind of thing. Every day. Now that's pleasure if I've ever heard of it. And who can let this kind of opportunity go to discover what thoughts those thinkers are thinking?
So I ask. And they answer. Well, sometimes they answer - when they don't deem the questions a total insult of intelligence they answer. I can tell when the questions are beneath them when the answer comes back as an armpit fart, to choose an example at random. There are three kids who can speak, just so you know - their responses are listed in order of oldest to youngest. Here's how it went down tonight:
"What pleasure is this about?"
1. Pleasuring in your country
2. Waiting for school to start
3. I have no idea. How the heck should I know.
"What is allegiance?"
1. Loving
2. (armpit fart)
3. (shoulder shrug)
"Why do you say this every day?"
1. To remember how much we love our country
2. It's on the loudspeaker, it would be pretty hard to ignore.
3. So I don't have to move my clip (remember the clip! you have to move it if you do something wrong like suck on your fingers, trace a pattern in the rug with your finger, refuse allegiance!)
Then they all stood together, a wall of solidarity and pleasuring in our country. They recited a vaguely recognizable version of the pledge that we all know. And darnit, I got all teary. Now this is school, this is what I remember - the cracking loudspeaker with the pledge and the string of unintelligible morning announcements. I am moved by the next generation being groomed in the ways of country lovin'.
Stand up and pledge with pleasure, people, or move your clip to yellow. Your choice.
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