The year is 19.. something. I am in grade 5. I don’t remember the specifics but I found myself standing in the principal’s office. The conclusion of the whole episode came with the following words tumbling out of the principal’s mouth: "carry on". I found myself thinking…nothing. I mean, what do you say at such ambiguity? I just stood there and then sort of wished I hadn’t been there. "Um, okay, cool. Are you trying to be funny?" I didn’t say, but felt a strong urge to say. I said…nothing. Next, I found myself outside the office. Good grief, that was the most ambiguous conversation I had had (in your life, not mine) so far.

I bumped into my friend in the hall, who by the way shall remain nameless (the friend, not the hall. The hall in fact did have a name. It was called the chamcha hall, no kidding). Outside, snow wasn’t falling, even though it was December. "What did he say?" asked my friend.

"Carry on".

"Hmm what does that mean?".

"I am still in contemplation on that. Things like that make you think about life and all that is ugly about it." "Did you know," I said, "that I noticed a drop of a watery fluid sitting on the tip of the principal’s nose?"

"Hmm, what did you do about it?"

"About what?"

"The watery thing, what else."

"Well, I took a fly swatter, and swatted it like a fly. What kind of a dumb question is that? What do you think I should have done with the drop of watery fluid protruding from the principal’s nose? And what’s with the constant ‘hmms’? Are you some kind of a humming bird?"

This statement conjured up in my mind the image of my friend, who by the way has a generous belly in the front and back parts of his body—where was I? Oh yeah, I was conjuring up an image. I found myself contemplating my friend as a humming bird, the wings almost gasping from the belly load.

In class the next day, half the class was dozing. The instructor's mouth opened and closed intermittently with various twirping sounds escaping it. There was a knock at the door. The instructor must have seen the episode that was to occur in his crystal ball, because he ignored the knock. The student walked in. The instructor not only didn't turn, but continued to twitter.

"ahem" said the student.

This was going to be fun, I thought.

"ahem" said the student again. This time knocking on the desk behind the instructor at the same time.

"Get out of my class," yelled the instructor, giving the student a good excuse not to hear the lecture, and breaking the other students' mid-noon siesta.

Notice that the student didn't say a word. Now that is respect, don't you think?

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