Not EXACTLY, but you get the idea.
I am a man of refined taste. I drink Miller High Life, I eat my canned cheeses on Ritz crackers, and if I had a cat or kitten, I would most assuredly read Cat Fancy (but just for the articles, honestly!). Because I’m a fancy-ass man with as much class as any John Malkovich character you might see, even the ones with swords, I can tell you that there is nothing richer than acting rich. Just walk up to some serf and pretend you’re wiping your nose with Andrew Jackson’s visage. They will no doubt give you a Dickensian look of despondency indicating the perfect time to say, “Stick that in your tulip glass and see how it noses.” At this point, the previous sad expression will transform into one of bewilderment and you have won the superiority game.
And it feels good to be a winner. Just ask me. I would not hesitate for a moment in telling you that I have been called a coquette by the French and a cretino by the Italians. I don’t know if you’ve ever been called italicized things by foreigners before, but it’s pretty much great. If you want to be lifeboat material like Billy Zane and Dolores Claiborne, you gotta make your life worth saving. Get some culture. Let me put it this way: I can chew my caviar and rub my cravat at the same time. I’m like some Donald Trumpeter of the high-end times.
But the savoir vivre I achieved did not come without tribulation, friends, for I was not born a child of elegance. I had to fight, you see. I had to food fight. Not necessarily fighting with food, though that’s always looked like a lot of fun. This was more of an internal struggle. Like my internals were struggling.
Like my belly was full of public school food.
Now I’m not saying that private schools had it way, way better than public schools, but we’ve all heard stories of Hawaiian Punch in the water fountains and go-karts and kidapults on the playgrounds. Or, at the very least, unrectangular pizza slices. I can only write on my own experiences, however, and they are difficult to swallow to this day. I still have Vietnam flashbacks of 
fish krispies. Vegetable medley night terrors. Weak knees from the mac-n-cheese. Have you ever cried over beef stew? Neither have I, but I saw a lunch lady do it once. I decided on that day that I was never EVER going to end up a lunch lady. And I made good on my self-promise (so far). I also decided on that day that I was never going to eat old lady tears in my beef stew ever again. Thank you for that, Ms. Rhonda.
But it wasn’t all bad up in the cafeterias. There were a few All-Star players in the lunch game. I’m thinking of some Hall of Famers like Cinnamon Roll, Orange Sherbert, and Beefy Cheese Nachos. Hell, even Ol’ Krinkley Fries had his good days. There was only one, however, that children checked for on their fridge’s lunch calendars in blithesome anticipation. Only one for which the ‘bring your lunch’ kids unselfishly awarded their PB&Js and Dunk-a-Roos to their classmates for a taste of savory poultry flesh bathed in luscious barbecue dressing. I’m referring, of course, to Chicken Nugget Day.
Let’s check out the line-up:
–5 tender nuggets
–mashed potatoes w/ brown gravy
–1 bread roll
–maybe a piece of chocolate cake or some ice cream (chocolate or vanilla) for dessert
–1 milk
–1 heaping helping of love
CND, after the health pushers stole our dessert rights and ruined this country.
The dish too delish to diss. The combination made kids’ heads spin. It was like the ’92 Dream Team of cheap, unfrozen meals (think about it like this: chocolate milk = Patrick Ewing…see?). Chicken Nugget Day (henceforth known as CND) rendered the cafeteria a house of madness. You could compare it to the New York Stock Exchange, but swap out business suits for OshKosh B’Gosh and stocks for salty meat pieces. Kids became nugget pimps, trading tray items in shifty under-the-table dealings. But, trust me, it was no easy task convincing others to barter their fried hen skin (or any of the other complementary menu items) and it may have been even more difficult to curb incoming advances from pushy bully types. Why don’t you eat your own butt if you’re still hungry, T.J.?
What was it about those chomps of chicken that made children rebuff offers
of Teddy Grahams or Fruit by the Foot to retain their midday refection? I mean, my God man, that’s three feet of fun! How could one keep all his own nugs and collect the nugs of others without nug consequences? It’s a nugly world out there and you can’t just outnug the system. What a truly bleak nug of war we pulled at all those years.
There was, however, one morsel of pure goodness that penetrated the darkness of our nugget-craving souls:
THE PERFECT BITE (also known as The Ultimate Bite in the Northeastern States and parts of Canada)
How to make The Perfect Bite—1.) Pull off a piece of bread roll, this will be used as the base. 2.) Apply 1 chicken nugget to roll base. 3.) Top bite with scoop of mashed potatoes. 4.) Place whole bite in mouth and chew.
I once knew a kid who didn’t partake in The Perfect Bite and now I’m pretty sure he’s dead or in Vermont or something like this. TPB was a beautiful, hopeful thing that brought truants to class and smiles to their faces. It was the excess before recess. A school time activity where even the dumb kids could feel special. Thanks to ye, CND!
So, as you can read, even some of the fanciest pants out there were once filled by starch packed comestibles. Though I’m glad I’m finished with that old lunch food, part of me still yearns for another cafeteria nugget (dipped in a coupe of grey poupon, of course). Now I hear that school lunches are much healthier than their counterparts of eld. I can’t imagine that healthier means tastier though, so I suppose this doesn’t constitute an opportunity for me to bitch about the good ole days as I so often do in these situations. Well, bye!
vainglorious smirk of that awful little Play-Doh boy, devoid of all sympathy, and wearing his blue beret kind of sideways. Maybe that’s how you wear a beret. I’m not sure. But it’s definitely dumb looking. In this desolate vision I hear the blonde terror call out to me, longing to be in my digestive system where it can inflict the havoc of 10,000 pizza bagels. Then I am roused to consciousness in a cold sweat, screaming like Nathan Lane at his worst, and then gagging ever so dryly. It takes me a few seconds, but I always remember: it’s 2009. I don’t eat Play-Doh that much anymore.
Mom, Dad, I want 
success of their creation and moved into that summer home in 
You might be saying to yourself, “Sure, Gak is an amazing, purposeful product, but I’m not sold. How could some old mooncalf (and appreciated reader) like myself have taken advantage of Gak’s greatness to the absolute pinnacle of enjoyment? Was there some sort of activity set that would have manifested all my wildest hopes?”
porringers, face paint, nachos, Charles Barkley, and even arduous high-fiving. Do you know what this moment was? If your answer contains the words “marching” and “band” in it, get the hell off my website.
Now, I’ve never had any formal training in my art of choice. I’m self-taught. Like Bob Dylan and Mark McGrath. But that doesn’t mean I don’t feel what Ernest Hemingway says the Spaniards call aficion. I feel a ton of aficion. Butt loads. That’s why I can appreciate the grace and passion and sexuality of dance in everything I see. But especially in dancing flowers.
scientifically PROVEN to turn all frowns upside down. All you had to do was put that bad boy next to a speaker, pump out the jams, and, voilà, seconds of entertainment. But what if I’m walking from my car into work and I don’t have a way of producing music for a mid-trip flower dance pick-me-up? Don’t worry. You can sing a little tune yourself. Or just speak. Snap your fingers a couple times even. That flower will boogie back and forth regardless. Hell, you could just sit all day insulting the thing–it’s still groovin’. Can you say the same for Beyonce?
thought put into a toy since the Glo Worm.
Hello. That was a mission I just made possible. But don’t worry! We’re not going to be getting into TOO much tomcruisery today. Nope. Today we have much bigger helicopters to hang from. What I’m smugly getting at is a little movie I like to call Cloak & Dagger. In fact, most everyone likes to call it Cloak & Dagger. Except, of course, for those people that take some sort of pleasure out of retitling movies for seemingly no reason. I don’t know anyone like that. Do those people even exist? There’s no real way of telling, but a good agent always assumes the worst.
always excellent Dabney Coleman. Davey’s penchant for spy-related gaming and make believe allows Dabney Coleman to fill another role as Davey’s imaginary friend and star of his favorite game, Jack Flack, which I’m actually seriously thankful for. Think of it like this: Two Colemen are better than one. It’s double the Dabney, and baby, triple the fun.
I apologize if that description was a little confusing, but a good operative should always be on his toes. Davey just needs to not get murdered. Tell a grown up, Davey!
out their fantasies. Had I ever been given superpowers, I wouldn’t've minded a few kid-murdering jokers chasing me around for an hour and a half. But I was never given superpowers. And that is my cross to bear.
I’m sure you all remember Chip, the Cookie Crisp loving dog of yesteryear. He would often travel from group of children to group of children singing the praises of his cereal and exploding young minds with its raw deliciousness. Some adult would always come into the picture, some totally lame square adult at that, and be like, “Cookies aren’t for breakfast. Cookies are for other times. This is ridiculous,” and then Chip would shovel a bite of Crisp down their bossy kid-ordering pipes, one bite, and BOOM!
from a live action bowl of the cereal, but was always busted by Officer Crumb, the Cookie Cop, an Irish American policeman assigned to protect children’s unorthodox first meal. Sorry, Cookie Crook, but it’s all in the Game. After developing new and ingenious methods for stealing real-ass cereal from giant actual children, and always to no avail, the Cookie Crook returned to his own fully animated world and became a normal sized adult man. But, in his campaign to end all cookie themed cereal theft, Officer Crumb was never too far behind. Watching. Waiting.
Chip was probably a good dog, good puppy, he is a good puppy, you are a good puppy, aren’t you? Yes, you are. Yes, you are. But of course, when your master is a raving lunatic with a sweet tooth and one purpose in life, what can you expect? Like master, like dog, I always say.
earlier and earlier, the retina of my mind’s eye fixes on the calm visage of a familiar friend. A friend who any little boy or girl could stay up with late into the night, almost until the break of 9:30, quietly listening to his sweet whispers in the dark. A friend indeed. Ladies and gentlemen, Teddy Ruxpin.
comes Teddy’s best friend (besides you, of course), the GRUBBY! Out comes Grubby to the party complete with a cable that hooks into Teddy and a speaker that provides just the audio for the Grubby dialogue in a full-on feast-for-the-ears extreme mega story session. But what if, because of all these tapes I have to buy each week to keep my kid from crying all damn night, I can’t afford a Grubby doll, too? That’s okay, friend, because Teddy will read the Grubby stuff should no Grubby be present/hooked up. But how does Teddy know which parts of the audio not to mouth? I don’t know. Come on. I researched all that other stuff. On the net. He’s just Teddy. He waits patiently in silence for you to awake. He knows.
Things were pretty rough in 1994. People were clubbing other people in their Olympic kneecaps, the MLB players’ strike resulted in the cancellation of the World Series, John and Lorena Bobbitt suffered a stressful time in their marriage, Cobain departed for Rock Heaven, O.J. was [*ACCUSED AND LATER ACQUITTED OF*] killing folks, Whoopie hosted the Academy Awards, and, of course, Woodstock ’94. But if you were still having your birthday parties at the local roller skate rink, then I’d bet that many of 1994′s headlines didn’t capture your interest quite as much as Nickelodeon’s Saturday night SNICK line-up.
people as other characters probably.
