September 25, 2003
She Told Us About The Negative People

Dad returned from his week-long trip to North Carolina or South Carolina or wherever he went. Every September he leaves for one of these national town administrator meetings that gather in faraway places. Florida, Utah, Vancouver, Japan. We went once with him to Washington DC; I was in third grade, I think. I can remember that stay pretty distinctly--I went in the White House and there were rumors Chealsea Clinton would come down with Socks or Boots or whatever the cat's name was; I think they say that for every tour group. I went to the zoo and saw those famous pandas; they had a poster up by their cell that depicted the pandas' attempts at baby-making, including several pictures with a large red "WRONG!" stamped over them. It didn't bother me then nearly as much as it does now.

We also went to this crazy party or business meeting or something, at what I think was the biggest building I've ever been in. There were hundreds of people there but I don't remember what it was all about. I do remember eating pretzels in a wing that was to the right of the entrance hall. And I do remember taunting the human-statues that were stationed here and there. One of them did not bother acting like a statue--she tiptoed around with her quiver and Greek sandals and put her finger up to her mouth every now and then to say, "Shh! No one knows I'm alive, okay?" Yeah. Right.

The rest of the trip sucked because it always rained, and we bought cheap road-side umbrellas for our long walk to the Capital, which was so not worth it. Boringest place in the world. Or at least in Washington.

Since then we haven't gone with Dad to any board meetings in any faraway places. But every September he goes, and comes back with some story to tell.

This time we were having dinner and he was telling us about some motivational speaker he saw. Her name was Amanda Something, and she was very funny. She didn't sound funny. Guess I should have been there. She had them hold hands and give each other thumbs up and exclaim "Excellent!"

"I know you're all thinking about how stupid you look right now," she is quoted as saying. "But the guy next to you is thinking the same thing about himself--not you. Don't worry."

Boring.

He tells us so many stories about her, and how she wasn't just a dumb motivational speaker. I beg to differ: she made them imagine they had a potato. And on that pretend potato they pretended to write the name of someone really negative. They'd put the pretend potato in a pretend sack, and then conjure another one, upon which they would write a traumatic event in their life. And after writing on a million pretend potatoes, she said something like, "Now, you hold that potato sack over your shoulder, and you walk through life with it, all these negative things."

Boring.

I don't like talking about positivity and negativity with my parents. First of all, those words are used way too much and have lost all meaning. When I think of negativity I think of Coral from the Real World going on about Steven in the Battle of the Seasons, and how he gives off a "negative vibe" that ruined her mood. So as not to seem uninterested, I tried to pitch in a bit.

"Hey we had a guy come to the school last year. He was pretty good; he like, picked two kids out of the crowd and made fun of them, it was funny."

They gave me a look. "Well that's not nice."

"No, it wasn't like, mean or anything, it was funny. They were laughing. Then he had some kid--just picked him out random--call his mom. The guy just gave him his cellphone and he called his mom."

"Oh."

Excuse me, I thought to myself. I acted interested in your dumb story, now you listen to mine.

"Doesn't sound too motivational," Dad said to me through gritted teeth.

"You'll know a good motivational speaker when you see one," Mom agreed. "It may seem dumb at first, but some day it'll change your life."

"She told us this neat little thing-- 'build me a bridge and get over it.'"

"Oh yeah," I said. "Cry me a river, build--"

"No, build me a bridge," he said, making a little arch on the tablecloth.

"Hey. What's this?" Mom asked, drawing a semicircle in the air.

"...A bridge?"

"No, it's the other half of this." And she drew the bottom half of a circle.

I thought about it for a moment, then disagreed. The top half of a circle is not the other half of the bottom of a circle. It's the reciprocal of the first half, perhaps. Symmetrical. I didn't mean to be a know-it-all, but the joke didn't make sense to me. I like math, I think it mathematical terms. And the joke wasn't correct.

"Well you don't have to take it so seriously," Mom said. "It's just a joke, an old man at the hospital told it to me, so sorry."

"I'm just saying! It doesn't work out, if you think about it."

"She told us about the negative people," Dad continued. "About how they suck the fun out of everything, they're too uptight." He nodded at me. "You can go."

I picked up my plate, said thank you, and went to the dishwasher to clean up. I could have let it go, had they not started singing "The Bright Side Of Life" as I left the kitchen. I could have done without that.

- Molly{7:22 pm}

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