Dishonor Student

Before I finally throw my 1997 PC CPU into the dustbin of history, I decided to fire it up one last time and see if I could salvage some old papers and e-mails.

There are three ways you can approach your past: you can run, you can hide, or you can die. Oh no, wait those are the three choices for the survivors on Lost on the season finale. There are two ways you can approach your past: you can laugh or you can cringe.

I choose to laugh. And so I will share with you a discovery. A little gem from My Documents in creaky Windows 98. It comes from the time when I was in a creative writing class in college, and my professor had the audacity to give me my first-ever B-minus. It was mightily painful to swallow for a lifetime A-plus like myself. (Even my blood type is A+!) What's an angsty teen to do? Put into a poem of course. This particular ode strikes me as epic in its horribleness, but I'll let you decide for yourselves. Read, and weep:

36

#36,476 on the top seller list
and yet you sit in judgment of me
seated behind your oaken throne
you spit back the poison that has so long been cast upon you
And with a half-thought and a flourish
You brand my work with a scar

How can I now be proud
Of this rag that wears its label like a gleaming Scarlet letter
But not an A, mind you.
Hester Prynne never had the worse dishonor
Of displaying a Scarlet B-minus