#16

When I got back to school they were still playing “Grothoff says.” Today’s game was fun though – it was nothing serious, nothing that would get us in trouble. We split into five groups and we each chose trigger words. And those words triggered our paper cars that we lined up on a pencil etched track on our desk.

The racers:
“Exactly”
“Like”
“America”
“Class”
“Marvin” (a.k.a. The Class Pet)

My group had our money on America, because we were learning about American history. How could you possible go wrong there? Well, I found out pretty quickly . . .

“Alright class (point!), today we’re going to learn about the American (point!) Constitution. I first want to educate you on what a constitution is. The constitution is the supreme set of laws of our country. And it also expresses the type of government we will have. Class (point!), who know what type of government we have?”

Marvin throws up his hand.

“Yes Marvin? (point!)”

“It’s a federal constitutional republic.”

“You’re exactly (point!) right, Marvin (point!).” Miss Grothoff sees a flapping hand and calls on its owner. “Yes Paul?”

“The constitution is a document that was written when our country was started to explain how the country is supposed to operate. It contains information on how the government is to be organized, it lays out the descriptions of the most important jobs and what the responsibilities of those jobs are, and it lays out the core values of the country as the foundation for what sorts of laws should be made."

“Exactly. (point!) Paul, I’m impressed. You actually did your homework.”

Anyway, I don’t want to bore you with too much information on things you already know. If you’re truly, madly, deeply interested about the American Constitution, you could wikisearch it.

About the points. “America" lost big time. In the middle of the lesson Miss Grothoff stopped referring to America as America, but switched over to United States. That really ticked off my team.

The team that crossed the finish line first on our race track was the “Marvin” team. You could totally see it coming too. Once Paul let out that little blurb, Marvin got all jealous and sat on the edge of his seat, pouncing on every question. Marvin, dude . . . What a kid.

Carl still hates me. He threw half of his cupcake at me during lunch. I threw back a banana peel. Unfortunately, I got caught and now I have to help clean up the cafeteria tables.

[Now past the half-way mark!!!]