( … for the singing of our national anthem.)

Three Days Previous…

After a laborious day of instilling a love of Latin into the youth of Walpole, lest they otherwise turn to a life of petty theft and general hooliganism, I leaned back in the sublime comfort of my chair and sipped my tea, my cares being swept away by a sapid wave of exotic spices and Splenda.

Knock-knock.

“Come in, if you must,” I sighed in a languorous tone.

With sudden and terrifying force, the door was pulled open, and into my room stormed a certain Mr. Conor Cashman – Faculty Advisor and Chief Scandal-Monger of The Rebellion, Assistant Coach of the WHS Speed-Jogging Team, and Autocrator of the once-mighty Chess Club.  He stood before me with a face as red as the setting sun (it is more commonly a gentle pink, like bubble gum), and with his fists clenched tightly, like Hot Pockets filled with rage and disappointment and maybe pepperoni.

“BAKALE!” he bellowed.  “I’ve been waiting for three months for you to give me something to put up on your blog!  Three months!  I’ve listened to one lame excuse after another from you!  You had to grade tests.  You were suffering from writer’s block.  Your fingers were too sore to type.  The telegraph lines had been cut by insurgents.  Gnomes.  You promised to deliver, Bakale!  And what do I get?  One sentence and… I don’t know what’s going on in this video!  Enough is enough!”

“You disappoint me, mon ami,” I replied, utterly unperturbed.  “Simplicity is everything – Ben Franklin probably said that.  It’s not the words that are there.  It’s the words that aren’t there.  Open your eyes, Cashman!  It’s a koan!”

There was an awkward silence.  “Whoa,” muttered Cashman, “I get it.  I get it.”  Swollen with enlightenment, he gave me his sincerest thanks and gamboled merrily out into the hallway.