Showin’ & Tellin’

Whatever happened to Show & Tell? Do kids in kindergarten and prekindergarten these days even have that?

If you are my age you probably had Show & Tell. If you never had Show & Tell you really missed an awesome … er, amazing … er, bone-chilling and terrifying and leaving emotional scars for the rest of your life activity. At least for some.

To inform those of you who missed Show & Tell, kids had to get up in front of the ENTIRE CLASS and hold up some object and tell the rest of the class about the object. 

Some people fear public speaking more than death. These people never had Mrs. Foreman for a teacher. When it came to Show & Tell, you HAD to participate or she would kill you and THEN make you stand up and explain what you did wrong and when the funeral arrangements were. 

She killed Rodney three times before Christmas.

Show & Tell is public speaking as ordered by a higher authority with no chance for escape no matter how much the poor kid stood there and peed in their pants. It was also public speaking with props, which meant if you were smart enough to bring something large you could hide your wet pants. 

But being kindergarten students, our thinking was not that advanced so we generally brought something that would fit in our pants pocket.

Beside, peeing in our pants was more or less a regular occurence. No one wanted to interrupt recess to run to the bathroom.

Have you ever tried to pull something out of your pants when your pants are wet? It’s nearly impossible. Chuck bounced around the front of the class for an entire week trying to get his Show & Tell out of his pocket. He stopped after he passed out from dehydration.

Mrs. Foreman gave him a zero. Then she killed him. The next week he brought his Show & Tell in a separate pair of pants, which he put on after Show & Tell.

It never bothered me to stand up in front of the class and talk, which may surprise many of you because of my current shy and retiring personality. 

Mrs. Foreman had to find other reasons to kill me. I wish I could remember what I took to Show & Tell. But even if Mrs. Foreman was standing over me threatening to kill me again, I could not recall a single thing I took.

At the risk of making you pee in your pants again, I ask what did you take for Show & Tell? Mrs. Foreman is long  gone to that great Classroom in the Sky so you don’t have to worry about her coming to kill you if you can’t remember. 

Do you remember what other people brought to Show & Tell?

Denise got up one day with a brush. She held it up and said her momma bought it for her. I suspect it was her momma’s and she swiped it on the way out of the house. She threw it at Toe Cramp, who brought a set of wrenches. Even at that young age, Toe Cramp was ready to take a Harley out for a park on the side of the road.

Larry “Hawgin’” Fishbreath took his favorite fishing lure one time. After the teacher’s aid got done cutting it out of his pants, he had to go home and put on new pants. Mrs. Foreman killed him and sent the lure home with Mrs. Fishbreath.

We do have modern Show & Tell thanks to the invention of webcams, cell phone cameras and such. 

Some of the stuff people tell me they see on webcams and cell phone cameras proves to me the fear of public speaking is alive and well. Some of those poor folks are so terrified of public speaking they must have peed in their pants. That’s the only reason I can figure why they are not wearing pants in some of the pictures.

Mrs. Foreman would kill ‘em.