A is for

Well, since the friend who introduced me to this website is doing this, I suppose I will, too.  She said she needed some blog buddies. What the hell.

Also I felt I should write something goofy so my eventual readers will know I'm not all serious all the time. 

A is for asshole. 

Yes, America has, it seems, more than its fair share, but that's not actually what this is about. 

When I was around ten or eleven and in school, there was this course we all did that taught us about grammar.  The course included drills, to get the students accustomed to using the different parts of speech and whatnot. 

One of these drills involved making up sentences that used the article "an".  I was working with a friend of mine and he was really having a hard time.  He just couldn't seem to grasp that "an" is used before a word beginning with a vowel.  

No amount of explaining would help this poor kid; he just didn't get it. So when it came to this drill, he got stumped pretty quick. 

I was drilling him and getting frustrated. This was easy stuff for me.  So I thought I'd give him a hand.  I said, "Come on, an..." then I mouthed, "apple".  

He brightened and said, "Apple!"  

"Good!" Elephant.

"An elephant!"

"Good!" Orange.

"An orange!" He was happy. He was cheating through the drill. He could pass. But he wasn't getting it.  Instead, he was robotically reading my lips.

Frustrated, I said, "Good!" Asshole.

"An asshole!" he said brightly.  Everyone in the class turned to stare, including the teacher.  My friend's face went pale, his eyes widened.  He was as surprised as everyone.  Meanwhile I was resting my head in my hands, unable to decide if I should laugh my ass off or groan. 

Needless to say, we were sent to the principal.