Don't Know Much About History...

No, really, I don't. And you know why? Because I'm a genius.

Give me a little leeway here and I'll explain.

Set the Wayback Machine to 1986: American History class with Mr. Sawyer. He was not a teacher I particularly enjoyed, in spite of his bitchin mustache and sarcastic douchey manner. The thing was, Mr. Sawyer gave out homework every single day. This is not the right class for a lazy kid like I was. Well, maybe not lazy, per se. Okay, lazy.

The other thing was, though, that Mr. Sawyer was a busy, busy man. He had History class like six times a day. In addition to that, he coached track. So, I got to thinking... six times thirty kids times homework every day... that's 180 pages to review. Plus track. It almost seemed like it would be impossible to really check every single one...

The next homework assignment was a definition of terms. I filled it out something like this:

George S. Patton - Wore a red sweater and smoked a corn cob pipe. Thoroughly enjoyed cheese.
Operation Quicksilver - If you ever accidentally swallow a thermometer, you will need to have one of these operations.

...you get the idea.

The next day, I got my homework back with a fat green check mark indicating full credit. "Heh heh," I chuckled to myself.

I grew bolder still. The next assignment I filled out with the lyrics to Stairway to Heaven.

Another day passed, another green check mark was awarded. Hey, this was easy! Even my choice of song was unoriginal. Hooray, me.

You might think, "Keep pushing, kid, and eventually you're going to get caught." In this case, though, you would be wrong. There were tests, of course. I don't remember what I did for those. Cram, maybe? Who cares? I had escaped craploads of homework!

In this way, I genius-ed myself out of part of a good education. And the rest, as they say, is over.

So, if you ever ask me when Prohibition was and I query, "Wasn't that around the same time South Dakota invented yams?" - you will know why.