the Hippo Brigade

Middle of the road

8 Comments

December 9, 2010

I’ve always been mediocre.

Perfectly poised at half-assed.

I’ve always thought about going above and beyond. Does thinking about it account for something?

Like at the beginning of the school year.

I was always, “Hellz ya, I’m going to read Chapter 1, and then watch out Teach, because I’m gonna read Chapter 2,3, and 4 too. You can never be too prepared. Hey! Look at all my fresh paper, and my assortment of colored pens.”

But then something far more interesting would always happen, like social gatherings in the Del Taco parking lot, or a cat food eating contest on the quad, or a Charles in Charge marathon, and who has time to read chapters of books because that pop tart ain’t gonna eat itself.

And thusly, I would watch my academic status sink down into the B-/C+ range.

Same goes for my life now. If I were to get a report card, I’d probably average a 2.4 GPA

Home Cleanliness    C-      Needs improvement

Marriage     B                        Should communicate more

Children    B-                        Discipline issues, but hey, they’re all alive!

Personal Image   C+           Inconsistant

Friendship     B-                   Can invest more

But to me, there’s something appealing about being mediocre. The bar is set nice and low, so when you do something above and beyond, everyone is so flabbergasted by you that they mistake you for some type of super hero, and they say nice things about you for at least 12 days, and then buy you a box of donuts, even thought you’ve said it a million times, you don’t like donuts, you like cupcakes. CUP-CAKES. You even do a gesture to really drive the point home by cupping your hands and bringing them to your mouth, as if to take a bite of the delicious imaginary cupcake.

People that go above and beyond make me uneasy.

If you are one of those people that wake up before 7:30, keep it to yourself. Because as soon as I know that piece of information, I want to kill you.

Why are you up that early? What are you doing? Are you being productive? Quit being productive at 6:45 in the morning, it’s making me look bad!

Or those people that go shopping and say, “Oh, I can just make that.”

Sure I say it too.

But I’m talking about those people that actually mean it. They go home and make a feathered Christmas wreath out of pheasant feathers that they collected on their last field trip to a local farm.

And you think, pheasant feathers! Field trip?! Local farm?!

Crap.

And then you go back to watching that Charles in Charge marathon, because it’s the one where Charles and Buddy go on a blind date and wreck Mr. Powell’s car.

And that one is your favorite.