Mr. T's Relationship to me

Everybody, I think, in our lit class, (all seven of us) have had at least one story that we read that we felt completely different than everybody else in the class. When we read "Gimpel The Fool," that was mine. They thought it was stupid, thought it was amusing, pitied da fool, I was the one who saw myself as him.

I've been the one that would fall for the jokes. As I mentioned in class, I was the one who put my hand up to my face when somebody asked, "Who's hands smell like fish?" or informed me that "If your hand is larger than your face, then you have cancer."

I was the guy who checked to see if there was a spot on my shirt, before they slapped me in the nose. The sad thing at that point was that after being hit in the face, I often wouldn't understand why they did it, and I would continue to look in vain for the stain.

The things you fall for stick with you. I still remember this in from my first year of first grade. This kid, I don't remember his name, had an unusual looking pen. Looking back, it was probably a normal felt tip, but at that point, pens were a novelty; we were only allowed pencils, crayons and markers.

Anyway, this classmate told me that the pen was special. It gave him messages. I didn't believe him. "No, look, it talks to me." The pen then, while in his hand, started to write his name. (David? Ahron? This is gonna bug me now�) "See? It's talking to me!"

OK, YES, I admit it, I fell for it. I am\was an idiot. I fell for this hook, line, and sinker. I wanted one. I called him up nearly every night to bring his "other one" to school so I could use it. Every night he told me he packed it, but sure enough, in school the next day, he had forgotten it. I suppose I am lucky that I was only in first grade-money never came into it.

Maybe that's why, as a means of revenge to my situation, I studied con artistry. Well, it didn't start out that way, it started out where I wanted, like most kids, to learn all the jokes I could, and to learn magic tricks. Then I "progressed" to practical jokes. Then, in what can be called a big mistake, my mother and sister together bought me, for my birthday, Getting Even.

It says, in large white letters (the cover is black) "this book is not intended for the mentally unbalanced." Yet they bought it for me anyway. Haha. This book tells you specifically how to get revenge on your mark. OK, being written in 1980 it's a bit old. (In the chapter "Shoplifting," it instructs how to fill up a frozen pizza box with vinyl records. "Computers" tells you how much it screws up a computer when you put a slice of cheese in the slot for the computer punch card [No, I honestly do not know what that is.] "Telephones" tell you that it really annoys "Ma Bell" when you at every check, add or subtract a few random cents to the bill. Etc., it even gives you Richard Nixon's social security number to use "whenever you feel like giving your own would do you harm.") But, it still can cause serious problems.

The book gives you fabulous ideas. Had you ever realized that a potato in the exhaust pipe could work as a canon? Or what would happen if you tied a bag of paint (or fecal matter) around an M80, very gently broke a lightbulb, and set it up so that when the light turned on, the filament would ignite the fuse of the M80? Or, two words: "Shampoo" and "Nair." Two hundred pages of this type of stuff.