Listen, I know it’s all in good fun and I should be a good sport about this, but I would like this assembled Parent Teacher Association to come together and ask all those damn children to stop using me as source material. That jump rope rhyme they are incessantly chanting may be factual and only reflect the truth, but it is still hurtful.
And yes, I can appreciate that it is quite clever, especially considering that it was written by children. That’s not the point.
The point is that when I have to hear children rhyming “Turn around, touch the ground/ that guy just gained thirty pounds/ because of his divorce, of course/ he also looks like a horse” on seemingly every corner in this town, it is very unpleasant and very rude.
My facial resemblance to any kind of animal is my own business, certainly not that of jump-roping little jerks.
It’s a medical condition.
I do not deserve to hear “Double decker, double Dutch/six months since last human touch” just because I have to leave the house and we apparently live in the fucking jump-rope capital of the goddamn world.
Oh, I can’t prove the rhymes are about me. Okay so “Got his license took away, crashed into the old Subway, no more meatball sub footlongs and so we hate him with our song” is about some other guy who did that? Maybe some other guy who has apologized profusely for it, many times, to this very assembly? I don’t fucking think so!
I’m sorry for cursing. The rhymes are getting to me. None of you can understand what it is like to be ceaselessly mocked by the piping voices of children every day, the sound of feet rhythmically hitting the ground, and the terrible sound of jumping ropes. None of you!
You all think your precious children are harmless with their little games and taunting, accurate rhymes of “skipping feet, skipping feet/ that guy’s dad was a deadbeat,” meanwhile I’m crying in the men’s room at work remembering how Dad never even came to my baseball games.
Oh, sure, I’m a monster for trudging on their wellspring of creativity, especially one that’s generated lines as memorable as “halitosis is atrocious halitosis is ferocious/ but that’s nothing compared to that guy’s breath, Jesus, get that man some gum!” That one doesn’t even rhyme!
It’s a medical condition.
Fine, none of you will reign in your children and their savage, meticulously researched song games. I just hope none of you ever have to deal with something as painful and cutting as I do.
Now, if you will excuse me, I need to go plead my case to that caricature artist who makes everyone look like me, no matter what.