when i was in grade 3 i won a drawing contest. I totally hogged the one copy of this book Taking care of Crumley that my class had and therefore was able to draw the best picture of these two dorks on the jungle gym in their playground or whatever. All my peers were so jealous ’cause I got to meet Ted Staunton and he gave me a copy of Maggie and Me and he signed it too. I got to stand up in front of all the grade 3’s and shake his hand and hug him and show off my book. Ahhh. Do you believe i was the teacher’s pet and the smartest kid in all of grade three? Believe it. They wanted to skip me to grade four and to french immersion. I’m like, fuck no, I’m having too much fun sitting on my ass working on these simple-ass extra-credit assignments, being miss popular smartypants. I had this method of winning the teacher over every year. For the first month I’d be wicked decent and polite and do all my work immediately and I’d always put up my hand and never was afraid to speak up – and eventually i’d get special privileges like reading to the dumbest kid in class in lieu of doing my own assignments or going to the library to “read” (see: sleep on a beanbag chair until lunch and eat twinkies). And say if i did act up and get ratted out by a fellow fuckhead, the teacher would always take my side. Always. I could go on, but you get the picture. Manipulating people = good.

meet Cuda