A Twelfth Open Letter to the School District

Dear folks in charge of the decision making down at the School District,

I am writing you today to inquire about getting three or four student loans going. I’m not sure about the process for getting student loans for boys that are still in middle and high school, but I definitely know I want them.

I read the news recently that repayments on student loan debts have been frozen for a few years now, due to people’s inability to leave the house and get to the mailbox during quarantine. The government just voted to extend the freeze a while longer, and they are pushing for total forgiveness of up to $50,000 for any loan.

So, obviously, I would really like to get four separate $50,000 student loans going right away.

Most of the cost of public school seems to be built into my taxes, but with sports, school fundraisers, clothes, food, and the big three – masks, Clorox wipes, and hand sanitizer – educating our three boys has EASILY cost us more than fifty grand each over the past few years, so I should have no trouble qualifying.

I will also gladly sign up for a class or two at our local junior college to get the ball rolling on my own $50,000 pre-forgiven student loan. I’d like to look into a psychology track, but if they also have classes on basic math, personal finances, civic responsibility, compound interest, or what a loan is, I think those could really benefit everyone involved here.

Any information you can give me regarding applying for this fantastic “loan” opportunity would be greatly appreciated.

On another note, I’d also love to renounce my citizenship and become an undocumented immigrant, if that’s possible. Our governor here in California is giving out cool free stuff to them, and from what I understand, I would no longer have to pay taxes. So that seems like something I’d be very interested in exploring.

Let me know if that’s your department, or if I need to contact someone else. I am absolutely willing to cross either one of our nation’s borders and then sneak back in if that’s what’s required.

Thanks in advance!

Yours in educational excellence through continued partnership,

-Smidge

 

Copyright © 2022 Marc Schmatjen

 

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These Guys Sound Fishy

A long time ago, in another life, I worked in the construction industry. I was pretty good at pretending, so it took a number of years before anyone figured out that I had no idea what I was doing, and I was forced to become a humor writer instead.

At some point along the way, I worked with a guy named Ivan. As you can imagine from the name, he was Chinese... wait, no, Russian. He was Russian. He and his cousin had moved to the United States from Russia (or maybe one of the ‘ias, or the ‘stans – I don’t remember exactly) when they were in their early twenties. He was (and I am hoping, still is) a fun and enthusiastic guy, a hard worker, and an interesting fellow to talk to.

I had a lot of great conversations with him about his move to America and settling in. When he arrived he was most amazed about the amount of choices for everything at the grocery stores. He said in Russia you could usually find what you needed, but there would only be one brand of each thing. No wonder he moved. That’s just no way to live.

Fortunately, we have a lot of Russian immigrants, so he had an American-style selection of Russian ladies to choose from when it came to dating, and he was married with kids when I met him.

One day at the job site he was on the phone discussing his wife’s birthday present - with his black market hedgehog dealer, obviously. Because it had simply never occurred to me to own a hedgehog, I had no idea they were illegal to keep as pets in California. Apparently, the way he told it, every person from Russia loves hedgehogs, so it was going to be the ultimate gift for his wife.

I’m not one hundred percent sure what would happen if I gave my wife an illegal hedgehog for her birthday, but I’m certain she would have a less-than-Russian reaction. She might even report me to Fish and Game, or whomever is in charge of trying to thwart illegal hedgehog smuggling. No telling.

He had some good stories, but none better than the one about his first trip to Walmart.

He and his cousin had just arrived in the U.S., and wanted to gear up to go fishing. They were looking to purchase waders. (For those of you from New York and LA, waders are rubber overalls with attached boots, sort of like a prophylactic for your whole body. Instead of standing on the bank of the river not catching any fish, you can wade out into the water up to your chest and still not catch any fish, but you’ll be dry, like you were on the bank.)

Ivan and his cousin spoke almost no English at this point, and they were at the sporting goods section of a Walmart, which did not carry waders. This was before the internet (yes, kids, there was a time before the internet when we all had to talk to each other – dark times indeed), so with severely limited English, the two Russian twenty-something males were attempting to ask the female Walmart clerk where to go to buy waders.

That’s all well and good, and might have turned out fine, but the problem was that between the two of them, the only English fishing-related word they knew was ‘hook.’

They did not know the word ‘waders,’ nor did they know ‘boots,’ or anything else that might have described the uniquely-purposed item they were trying to source. All they knew was the word ‘clothes.’

So here are our heroes, both pantomiming the writhing, thrashing, yanking, and pulling required to actually get a pair of fishing waders on and pulled up to your chest, occasionally throwing in a whipping motion to simulate casting a fly rod, all the while repeating the same phrase they have expertly assembled in English to get their point across to the female clerk.

“We need hooker clothes.”

She called the police.

When the police department’s Russian interpreter peeled himself off the floor after his fit of hysterical laughter, he explained the misunderstanding to both parties, and everyone had a good chuckle. No charges were filed.

Learn the language, kids. (Or always have the internet handy.)

See you soon,

-Smidge

Copyright © 2017 Marc Schmatjen

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