Lame-Ass Things They Tried To Get Us To Like as Kids.

Soccer-Baseball
Soccer is fine.  Baseball is fine.   But when you combine the two…I’m sorry..it just SUCKS.

First of all, it was mostly just the 2-3 alpha kids who ever get up to “bat”.

And second, there were never enough players, so when the ball got kicked to kingdom come,  you’d spend forever chasing it and nobody would ever get tagged out.

And by the time it was FINALLY your turn to kick,  everyone wanted to quit out of sheer frustration and/or boredom.

I have NEVER seen a game played to completion.   I suspect this stupid activity was something lazy Phys-ed teachers came up with, just to occupy the kids till gym class is over.

Crafts from Recycled Trash
I don’t know who came up with the idea of teaching kids to “make things” out of trash.   Probably granola teachers, and TV Ontario (or PBS).

But what a stupid idea.

Oooh.  Look at us.  We’re recycling.

Yeah, right.

Seriously.   How much has the volume of municipal landfill sites been reduced, by 5-year-olds making caterpillars out of old egg cartons?

My guess is 0.00000001%.

And it’s not like these were treasured heirlooms that would stay in the family for generations.    No, they ended up in the dump next week,  when Mom threw them out to make room for the NEXT crappy project we brought home.

We werent’ reducing waste…we were just postponing it.

Arts and Craps Crafts in General
Pink construction paper, Elmers Glue, and pipe cleaners that were never supposed to see a pipe.   Is there any practical use for this junk, for anyone over age 8?

Just goes to prove:   Arts and Crafts was really just “busy work” designed to us screaming brats from killing each other for the next 30 minutes.

Teach a kid REAL art:  painting, drawing and sculpting….and who knows?  His stuff might be hanging in an art gallery one day.

But teach a kid Arts and Crafts, and the best you can hope for is a googly-eyed pinecone Santa.   That might sell for $2.99 at the Splat Creek Regional Craft Fair.

Might. .

Hot glue-gun, anyone?

Educational TV Shows
Parents would encourage us (or only allow us) to watch Educational TV.   Pablum-flavored drivel that you’d only find on PBS or CBC.

And we’d would pay lip-service to it.   At least it was TV…it was better than no TV.  And we wouldn’t get yelled at for watching it.  That was the only reason we tolerated it.

But parents…dont’ be fooled.  We knew damned well these shows were NOT the “real thing”.    At the first opportunity (like at a friend’s house) we’d be back to watching Tasmanian Devils swallow turkey-sized sticks of dynamite, or bears steal Pick-a-Nick baskets.

Now THAT was the stuff kids liked to talk about at recess (and still do)….NOT how Caillou learned how to share.


Giving Up Candy for Lent (*)

(*) Only applies if  you were raised Catholic.  Obviously.

Nobody really TOLD us we had to give up candy during Lent.   But between the priests, teachers and parents, it was kind of IMPLIED that we should.

Nothing like a good old fashionned Catholic Guilt Trip. (If Jesus can die on the cross for you sins, surely you can give up candy for a few weeks).

Every time I’d question what the point of all this was, what good did it do me…?    adults would give the same boilerplate answer:

“It builds charcter”

(To my dying day, I’ll never really undestand what they meant by that…nor do I care to).

Charater Shmaracter.  I just wanted my damned candy.

And I say…LET the kids have it.

The poor beggars will have more than enough opportunity to “build charcter” as adults, when they spend the next three decades being told what to do in a cubicle farm.

The least we could do is cut them some slack right now.

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Tags: arts and crafts, being raise catholic, educational TV, humor, kids, PBS, rant. Tasmanian Devil, soccer-baseball

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