Cue the Alice Cooper Music...Now!

Today is my kids' last day of school. No more homework, no more books, no more teacher's dirty looks. And you can eat lunch with real silverware and get a second napkin, if you'd like.

As far as I can tell, there is nothing especially special planned for the last day of school. They had pizza parties on Monday, and so today is just a final winding down of the entire year. Today is actually a make-up day from the week where we had some snow, so it's like it's double plus good when they finally achieve their freedom today since it was an extra day to begin with.

I can remember, as a child, on the last day of school we would have paperwad fights on the bus. Since you came home with all the paper that had been collecting in your desk throughout the entire year, you were fully armed. My first bus driver, Allen Kitt, was cool about the whole thing. He was just an old farmer who drove the bus for some extra money. I think since we were mostly well-behaved throughout the year that he didn't mind us inundating the bus floors with discarded paper.

My second driver, however, was Gene Tumbleson, and he was kind of a dick. He never let us have paperwad fights. As far as I know, he was never married, raised ten thousand hound dogs, and worked on derelict autos that covered his property. My friend Nick and I drove past his house once so that I could see where he lived. It was like the Bumpasses with all the hounds trotting around the place, but without all the charm and humor. Sonsabitches! No one leave a turkey lying around!

We recently passed the sixteenth anniversary of my very last night of school...well, not counting college and graduate school. June 3rd, 1994 was the fateful night when I shuffled off this educational coil and became "an adult". Graduation was "fun", because we got frisked on the way into the ceremony so that no one would sneak in anything untoward that would cause a disruption.

Of course, when they patted me down, they wanted to know why I was trying to sneak a garden hose into the ceremony in my pants. I was told to immediately pull it out and hand it over, but I declined, saying that I'd get arrested for indecent exposure and I didn't need that on my permanent record. True story. No, honest.

We also got Bibles after we graduated--you know, after we were no longer associated with the school--but we had to return our caps and gowns in order to receive our diplomas and our Christian propaganda. We left the gym and we started toward our home rooms when my friend, mild-mannered Dan King, turned to me and said, "Fuck this, let's run!"

So, we did. We ran through the halls of the high school. Oh what rebels we were. Actually, we wanted to get the fizzuck out of there as fast as possible because our mutual friend J.J. was having his graduation party that night, and it was going to be awesome.

And...it was. Sort of. After days of cajoling my mother into allowing me out from under her thumb for a few hours of fun with my friends, I finally was able to go. I showed up, well after the party had begun. I stayed until my curfew--one that I had even after I graduated from college, mind. The best part was riding around in the back of this girl's new convertible--cherry red--with my prom date and someone else. We sat on the back seat, not in it. It was dangerous, it was stupid, and it was the first time in my life I had done such a thing. Dawn--the driver--sped through the streets of Huntington while we sat, unrestrained, in the backseat. My heart raced with each twist and turn of our journey, wondering if I would tumble off the backseat and die having banged only one chick throughout my high school career, and that experience being something unworthy of bragging.

And I loved every minute of it. The ride in the car, not the regretting only fucking one girl in high school.

My kids aren't near the age of graduation yet, and won't be for a while. However, since the end of the school year is upon us, congratulations to all this year's graduates. Have fun, good luck, and don't pick your nose in public.

And if you need a substitute keynote speaker at your graduation, my rates are cheap. It's mostly just boob pictures and a bottle of rum.

A fella's gotta sleep, you know.