Random Memory at 2:24 A.M.

So I can't sleep, mainly due to me laying here in bed playing on my laptop watching Batman Beyond on Netflix... Ladies. But I started thinking about my past, like I usually do, and one memory has been plaguing me for the last couple of days. Okay, plaguing is a putting it too seriously. How about.... standing out among my thoughts? That sounds a better and takes this post in a much less serious direction.

Before I get to my memory, I just have to say that I really like Batman Beyond a lot. It's well written, smart, full of strong characters, and it has Batman The Musical. Seriously, go watch that. I will wait. (Actually I'm probably rewatching it) So everything is perfect right? WRONG! I have one glaring problem with the show, and it's how they portray Bruce Wayne as this decrepit and bitter old man who has been abandoned by everyone he ever cared about or was close to... and that just doesn't fly for me. He just stops fighting crime entirely, which is the most un-Batman thing I can think of him to do, and locks himself away for years and years until Terry McGinnis randomly comes by one night.

I've gotta stop before I go off on a rant that is much better suited for in person with elaborate hand gestures and possibly an impromptu sword fight. Back to my memory that has been rattling around in my head.

When I was in elementary school there was a school wide celebration for Earth Day, complete with guest speakers that no one cared about and poems written by students about saving the Earth and where will the penguins live? (I did not win the poem contest, in case you were curious). All in all, it was probably a really boring day but my young mind loved it, especially since I didn't have to go to class. What made the day stick out in my head was this game they made us play. I actually think they made us play a bunch of different games, grouped by grade, but that isn't what I'm focusing on. That was just a bit extra for you to enjoy, to put a better mental picture of the Rienzi Elementary School Gymnasium and my Earth Day experience. Dang, I'm rambling again, and instead of just deleting what I wrote I decided to call attention to the situation.

Dancing Taco

Anyways, the game I remember so well had us all pick a card, and on that card was something in the food chain. We had to go around and find everything that we either ate or that ate us, and when we did we were connected by a piece of yarn. Since there were about 40-50 of us doing this, things got pretty chaotic pretty quickly. Finally, after we were all connected, and some people were really cool animals (I think I was some kind of berry) the people running the game started incorporating things like poisons and pollution into the system. The idea was that if you were poisoned, then everything up the food chain that ate you was poisoned as well. That turned the tables entirely! No longer was I this ineffectual berry, I was core of the existence of the people who got really cool animals. The power was in my hands!! I would be the one berry to rule them all!!! MUWHAHAHAHA!!! I actually started hoping that I would get poisoned so that I could collapse this fragile excuse for an food chain, so I could bring down the powers that be and change the world! (Or at least the gymnasium), but alas, it was not meant to be for me, the berry best of the bottom of the food chain. I think that some sort of grain got chosen to be poisoned, lucky guy, and really the whole thing ended quite anticlimactically with everyone connected just sitting down and the people running the game yelling "See!? Just one small link in the chain can pull down an entire ecosystem! What does that tell you??" like this game was going to be the single reason that I chose not to go poison grains or whatever. And maybe for one of the other kids it was exactly what they needed, but for me it just felt like a big waste of time.

Looking back, that game had to have some lasting effect on me. Otherwise why would I be thinking about it all these years later? And I'm pretty sure I've come to a conclusion: I hate stupid things that are supposed to teach you lessons. I get bored and my mind starts to wander, usually to dreams of world (or gym) domination (or waffles). I just want you to tell me what I need to know, and then we can spend the rest of that time doing something awesome instead. For example, instead of the game where we knew everything was gonna die we could've played kickball. I love kickball. Boom! And winner would be proclaimed King of Earth.... Day. Or something like that.

I'm tired now, and I think I'm good to put this memory to bed. Thanks so much for reading, you really are my favorite. I'll probably do a few more posts kinda like this one where I dive back into my memories, but no promises. I don't want you to get all spoiled and junk.