Minutiæ

SCHOOL

U.S. His­to­ry Class: This week we’re learn­ing about the Rev­o­lu­tion­ary War. (8am, Mr. Barnes’ classroom)

Bar­rel Fac­to­ry Field Trip: Get your per­mis­sion slips signed by your par­ents and your lunch­es sacked because the entire 7th grade is tak­ing a trip to the city bar­rel fac­to­ry. Learn how to make bar­rels, learn what goes in bar­rels, and hey, just learn what bar­rels are. Maybe you’ll decide you want to one day pur­sue a pro­fes­sion in the bar­rel indus­try. It’s long hours and low pay, but in this town, the bar­rel-mak­ers (“coop­ers” as they’re known in the biz) make the rules. (Sep­tem­ber 5th, Bus­es leave school at 8:30am, $5 for juice and after­noon snack)

Hall­way Patrol Meet­ing: It’s the most illus­tri­ous posi­tion in school — the hall­way safe­ty patrol. And now it is time for the year­ly gath­er­ing of the patrols. Meet the new recruits, bid farewell to recent grad­u­ates, and see the sash­es torn from the shoul­ders of those that have failed in their patrol duties and dis­graced the ancient code. After all that, Vice Prin­ci­pal Petra­no is going to throw one heck of a piz­za par­ty. (Sep­tem­ber 10th, 3:30pm, School Cafeteria)

Week­end Deten­tion: Well, here we all are — the brain, the jock, the crim­i­nal, the pop­u­lar girl, the weirdo, the illu­sion­ist, the her­petol­o­gist, shoe girl, Blind Ron­ny, ancient Tim and Scor­pi­on. And we’re all sup­posed to spend the next few hours in this library, think­ing about what­ev­er it is Prin­ci­pal Peters says we did wrong. Well, Prin­ci­pal Peters, maybe we’re more than these pre-con­ceived labels you have put on us. Like the jock? Maybe he likes mak­ing chairs. And the pop­u­lar girl? Maybe she’s real­ly a duck. Not every­thing fits into your per­fect lit­tle box, man. (Sep­tem­ber 20th, 8am, School Library)

SPORTING EVENTS

Lit­tle League Base­ball: It’s the Bear Cubs ver­sus the Stal­lions in a rematch of last year’s epic show­down. And Jim­my is just going to be stand­ing in the out­field, not pay­ing atten­tion to any­thing. He’s going to twirl around, drop his glove, maybe start singing to him­self or some­thing. What­ev­er he does, he def­i­nite­ly won’t be pay­ing atten­tion to the game even if a fly ball is com­ing right at him. What is with that kid? And why won’t his folks just let him take those tap class­es like he wants? (Sep­tem­ber 20th, 10am, Marks­dale Field)

Horse: Rudy, Clay, Juan, Nicko, Brad, Ster­ling, and John­ny will all be play­ing a game of Horse. Rudy is the best, but Juan has been prac­tic­ing a lot late­ly and could be a real chal­lenge for Rudy. If Juan wins, Rudy will nev­er hear the end of it. They’ll be using Nick­o’s Mac­Gre­gor X35WC bas­ket­ball [reviewed by Minu­tiæ Kids Labs in last mon­th’s issue]. (Sep­tem­ber 12th, 4pm, Clay’s Driveway)

Butts Up: If it’s adult swim time, then every­one heads out into the pool’s park­ing lot to play. There are sev­er­al rules, but what mat­ters is that at some point, you have to go up to the wall and anoth­er play­er tries to throw a ten­nis ball up your butt. That’s just how they play it in this town. Every­one gets a ball up their butt even­tu­al­ly. May­or Gray­bone still has three ten­nis balls in his butt from when he played twen­ty years ago. (Sep­tem­ber 4th, 11:45am, Echo Ridge Pool)

Tag: It’s tag. They tag you, you tag them, some­one touch­es Debra’s boob, Debra gets mad and goes home, some­one calls that per­son who touched her boob a per­vert, every­one leaves, and the game is ruined. Why do we go through this tired cha­rade week after week? (Sep­tem­ber 10th, 12pm, School Ath­let­ic Field)

HANGS

Smok­ing: Phil says he’s going to show every­one how to smoke on Wednes­day after­noon in the woods behind the school. Accord­ing to Phil, he smokes all the time and loves it. He is going to steal a cig­ar from his step­dad and we’ll all smoke togeth­er. Just act like you do it all the time too. (Sep­tem­ber 9th, 3:45pm, Wood­ed Area Behind the School)

Video Games: Nel­son, Lloy­d’s old­er broth­er, is going to let Lloyd come over and play Dia­blo III on his Playsta­tion. Nel­son has his own apart­ment on the east side and is awe­some. He’s got a van, a girl­friend named Elle, and his own pet snake. Lloy­d’s mom won’t let him have a snake but at least he’ll get to pet Nel­son’s. (Sep­tem­ber 16th, 6pm, 1344 Apple Blvd., Apt. B)

The Mall: The whole school is head­ed to Shreve Mall on Fri­day after­noon. They’ll walk around, go in a cou­ple stores, sit around the food court, and pos­si­bly go to a movie at the AMC 16. Maybe Robert will be there. That’d be pret­ty great if he was. But he prob­a­bly won’t. Robert’s always at home, with his nose in some book, wor­ried about his grades and SATs. You have to live some­time, Robert. Ali­son won’t wait for­ev­er. (Sep­tem­ber 28th, 4pm, 100 Shreve Mall Avenue)

Los­ing of the Vir­gin­i­ty: Ted Keene is final­ly going to lose it. After a year and a half of dat­ing, Kim­ber­ly O’Brien has final­ly giv­en him the go ahead. He’s going over to her house on Thurs­day after­noon and they are going to do it. The wild mam­bo. The hor­i­zon­tal hus­tle. The twisty tus­tle. The for­bid­den fla­men­co. The clum­sy tan­go. The naked shim­my. The dirty, um, dance? Any­way, the rest of the kids put in a hid­den cam­era and are going to live stream the whole thing to the entire school, just to make sure it hap­pens. (Sep­tem­ber 12th, 6pm, 7434 Wal­nut St.)

THE REST

Piz­za Par­ty: It’s Mr. Con­nor’s last day at school so we’re putting down “To Kill a Mock­ing­bird” and order­ing a bunch of cheese piz­zas from Papa Johns. The pow­ers-that-be might not have liked Mr. Con­nor’s sit­ting-on-the-desk teach­ing style, but his stu­dents will nev­er for­get him. Espe­cial­ly because he gave each of us a card­board cutout of him­self. (Sep­tem­ber 20th, 11am, Mr. Con­nor’s classroom) ♦

Cred­it: d2king items