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| "AMERICA'S FUNNIEST HUMOR"TM
SHOWCASE |
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| June/July
2005 Contest Results |
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Winners,
Finalists & Honorable Mentions from the August/ September 2005
Contest will be featured in our Humor
Showcase until the
October/ November 2005 Contest is
over, when new Winners, Finalists & Honorable Mentions
will take their place on these pages!
Enter
the October/ November 2005 Contest to
claim (or regain!) a place in the Humor Showcase -- and in an
upcoming print edition!
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"Rotten Apple"
By Craig Nixon,
Midlothian, VA
Honorable Mention
As a competition junkie, it was refreshing to meet another in the form of a first-year history teacher from Nebraska by the name of Nolan Shigley. My high school English class was next to his and since we taught many of the same students, our friendship quickly developed and blossomed.
To keep the kids interested in our classes, we devised a series of planned practical jokes, all intended to arouse good clean fun. I began the repartee on a Friday afternoon after Nolan asked me to watch his class for a few minutes.
He returned to find the desks all pushed to the opposite side of the room, in perfect opposing symmetry, as if he had stepped into an alter universe. The kids stared stone-faced, working as if nothing had happened, silent partners in my duplicity.
Nolan retaliated swiftly and with enhanced bravado. In the middle of one of my freshman English classes there was a knock on my door. An older student politely asked to speak with me. I ushered him over to my desk as the class became quiet. “Mr. Shigley is doing a survey on handwriting. He thinks you write like a girl and wants to see your signature to prove it.” The class was hypnotized in suspense. “He does, does he,” I murmured and stabbed at the pen and began writing my name on a sheet of paper.
It took only a few seconds to realize that the pen was rigged and sent a jolt of electricity through my body causing me to drop it and jump out of my skin. The class laughed. I reddened and vowed revenge.
A few days passed and although our conversation remained innocuous, I knew he knew I was plotting a ruse.
It came on a Tuesday as he practiced with his track team behind the school.
Shigley, like myself, is a book lover, and spends hours reading, sucking in words like protein. This, then, would be the theme of my reprisal; his cubicle and the desk on which he works, the scene of the crime.
My wife’s sister is a librarian and consequently brings us books. By the bags. Most of these bags litter our already-cramped attic. I would now make good use of them.
I stacked books to the ceiling (nearly eight feet high), completely engulfing his work area. Each book faced in the same direction so that the outside layer broadcast titles and authors. When Shigley returned to work early Wednesday morning, he found his cubicle bereft of any space, distinguishing itself from the others around it. The “book wall” remained a fixture for almost a week.
Word spread fast between the two classes. Each vowed revenge on the other. Schemes were whispered between fits of laughter and awe.
In the next few months, a war of shenanigans was waged. The entire school seemed to be conspiring on one of two sides. In time some of the tricks become legendary.
Twenty pounds of halibut dumped into the back of a pickup truck.
An opened jar of mayonnaise strategically placed in a closed file drawer.
Defective track shoes handed out before a district match: lefts only.
Classroom posters turned upside down and glued to the wall (with real glue).
Hidden audio recorders prompting the class to be warned: “We have you surrounded. Any attempt at resistance is futile.”
Replacement of white board markers with “gag” markers that fade seconds after use and vanish entirely.
The phone in the classroom made to ring each day at 11:31.
And what appeared to be the highlight of the pedagogic wars, as they would later be called: instructional videos detailing some of Shakespeare’s most famous plays edited (somehow) so that the dialogue came from martial arts movies.
Finally a truce was called. White flags were exchanged. The school year was over. Shigley and I said goodbye to each other, excited by the chance to relax from a stressful year of high school education.
As usual, I was the last to leave the building. I figured my next door neighbor’s walls needed painting, and I was just the man for the job.
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