I’ve recently come across Anonymom‘s blog, another writing mum. She runs an interesting meme called Motherhood Monday, where she posts a prompt every weekend, for about 10 minutes worth of writing and then you post it on your own blog on the Monday, linking to Anonymom’s site. So this is my first attempt, the prompt this week is
Write about the situation that caused a parent
to place this bumper sticker on their car:
My kid can beat up your honor roll student.
Now, I’m British, so not totally sure what an honor roll student is but I can make a good guess. I’ve set the story in America, so my apologies about any cliches and any mistakes concerning the American school system.
‘My kid can beat up your honor roll student’
When I started high school, there was a lot of pressure on me from the folks. You see, I had this cousin, Mickey, who was a few years older than me and already at high school. Now Mickey caused the most tremendous embarrassment to our family, even his mum and dad, my Auntie Nadine and Uncle Vincent, would find excuses not to tell Mickey of family gatherings, because they just couldn’t live with the stares and the dirty looks from Grandpa Alonzo. You see Mickey was an honor roll student and my family just could not live with the shame. Auntie Nadine would bribe, cajole, even try and forcible drag Mickey out of the house, so that he could get his nose out of a book and hang round some street corners but it never worked. Auntie Nadine was desperate to get her son onto the street, she knew that if she could just get him out on the sidewalk, then maybe, just maybe the right people would see him and word would get back to Grandpa and maybe then the old man would be happy. It never worked and Grandpa would be muttering into his tortellini once again about how the best school in the world was the school on the street
So my big day arrived, with high expectations. I knew what I had to do, I had to go in, make an impression, for all the wrong reasons of course and then flunk off for the rest of the term. Things didn’t go too well for me though, although I certainly weren’t no honor roll student, I at least got that bit right. I just didn’t make an impression at all, class was warm and comfy and an excellent place to daydream. Nobody bothered me, not like on the street where the punks would always be trying to make a name for themselves by picking on me, just because of who my Grandpa was.
So Grandpa Alonzo was left muttering once more into his tortellini that things just weren’t like what they used to be. That was until I came across the ‘Mouseketters’ or should I say they came across me. You see what the family didn’t know was that honor roll student Mickey had an outfit all of his own, he had higher ambitions than just being a street mobster like Grandpa, he knew he had to hit the books, if he was going to make it to law school and then become one of the sleaziest lawyers in town. Mickey he wasn’t after no humble street corner protection racket, no the street he was after was Wall Street. But even Mickey was realistic, he knew that every self made man had humble beginnings and that he had to start small and that’s where the Mouseketters come in, they’re his outfit you see (yes, I know, Mickey may have had all the brains but he wasn’t totally original about thinking up cool gang names).
The Mouseketters were a group of honor roll students who had the school by its lunch money. They were a racket that promised zero effort, good grade reports, as long as you paid the right money. Their problem was that although they were a bunch of bookworms with their eyes on the big buck, they didn’t have much muscle power between them, so they thought they’d hire me and I didn’t have much choice. So when kids thought they’d try their luck and play the Mouseketter’s system, then I was the guy they sent in. I wasn’t happy but anything for the quiet life, that was until Little Ellie Johnson couldn’t pay up. Little Ellie Johnson was in my class, she was called ‘Little’ because she was the smallest in the whole school, honestly she looked like she shouldn’t have been in school for another two years, but she was still the sweetest thing. Honestly, I was surprised she’d even used the Mouseketters services, but apparently her grandma had been poorly and she’d been too shy to ask for an extension. But she couldn’t afford to pay up and when she couldn’t afford to pay up, the Mouseketters sent me in. Honestly, I couldn’t do it, even threaten sweet Little Ellie Johnson was too much, so I refused to do it. The Mouseketters threatened to reveal to the teachers that sweet Little Ellie had been cheating and I couldn’t stand for that either, so it had to go only one way, a show down. Now much as I didn’t normally go looking for trouble, it wasn’t the first time trouble had come looking for me, so I could look after myself, which is more than could be said for Mickey when it came down to it. I made sure Mickey would think twice about operating his little scam again and as a little positive side effect, made my mum rather proud of me in the process.
So I was pleasantly surprised to find I really enjoyed the first two episodes of the new series. There was less scene setting and the main characters were likeable but the biggest surprise was that the Slitheen, who had previously been quite a weak monster of the week, were excellent in this, although still playing for laughs with plenty of fart gags, they were a lot more menancing in these two episodes, even the baby Slitheen was cute but menancing. So you know what, I think I’ll be watching it next week.
