The Pony Is An Odd Duck

We all know that The Pony has his little idiosyncrasies. They were quite apparent at our heroin assembly yesterday. Lest you think that we are some progressive, I’m OK/You’re OK, everyone’s a winner, touchy-feely, self-esteem academy, rest assured that we were NOT handing out heroin for the kiddos to try. The event was a guest speaker we had never hosted before.

I saw The Pony sitting on the front row of bleachers. That is so unlike him. But…he was sitting on the end to make a quick getaway, and on the other side was a young lady he may or may not have previously had designs on.

There were some handpicked kids who were helping the presenters. Three of them were carrying fake babies though the audience. They would proffer the babe, and let it be passed down the row, like hot dogs at a stadium, but without the exchange of money.

I saw a dude go to The Pony’s row. He held out the swaddled young ‘un to my boy. The Pony held up both hands, palm out, and shook his head. Like Jerry refusing a bite of pie from his date. Three times The Pony was encouraged to hold the baby. I could almost hear Elaine’s friend: “You’ve GOT to HOLD the BABY!” I asked The Pony about it later.

“I didn’t WANT to hold the baby. My friend also refused. But not before she told that guy, ‘Are you sure you want to give HIM a baby?’ She knows what I’m like. Everybody should know.”

“You held your cousin’s little baby.”

“Yes. But I almost dropped her.”

“Which baby was this fake? The normal baby, the heroin baby, or the alcohol baby?”

“It was the alcohol baby.”

“How could you tell?”

“He told us. And it had legs like sticks, and they were all bowed, and its face was different.”

“I can’t believe you rejected the alcohol baby! I guess you really DON’T like to help people.”

“Nope.”

“So…what did you think of the program?”

“Meh.”

“I know. I think they’re new at this. They had the right idea. The addict with six years clean was the best part.”

“Yeah. He was interesting.”

“The rest of it just seemed like a class. We needed more personal stuff to get the kids involved. If they wanted a lesson, they could have stayed in class.”

“I know. I was there. Their PowerPoint wasn’t the greatest.”

“I don’t know much about that. I didn’t bring my glasses. They had good pictures of people near death from heroin. But they didn’t have to read the statistics and symptoms word for word.”

“Um. A LOT of their words on their PowerPoint were misspelled.”

“Oh. We probably won’t invite them back. Not because of their spelling, though.”

Yep. Red Ribbon Week assemblies are kind of like a box of chocolates. You never know what you’re going to get. If The Pony had his way, we would always bite into a piece with proper grammar.