Tales Out Of School

Mrs TK works in the local primary school and has a lot of laughs with the kids there and some of the things they say.

The other day she was on duty in the playground when one of the younger girls came up to her, full of excitement.

"Mrs TK, Mrs TK. Come and see my grandfather!"

Thinking that she was going to see some elderly gentleman leaning over the school gate smiling indulgently at his favourite granddaughter Mrs TK followed the little girl round the corner of the school.

Coming to a muddy patch of ground the little girl started jumping for joy, pointing excitedly at the ground and exclaiming "Look, look. It's my grandfather, he's come to see me!". Looking down Mrs TK discovered that the source of this unbridled joy was a large wriggly earthworm.

The little girl went on to explain, "It's my grandfather Mrs TK. He died and my mummy said that when people die they sometimes come back as animals and things and this is my grandfather and he's come back to see me and I am so happy to see him it's my grandfather it's my grandfather , it is, it is!"

Mrs TK said she was very pleased to meet the little girls grandfather, made her excuses, and left the little girl playing happily and introducing her friends to the wriggly creature.

Sadly, some time later, the little girl appeared at Mrs TK's side. Gone was the exhuberant, happy face, now the child was in floods of tears...

"Oh Mrs TK, it's terrible. Someone has thrown my grandfather into the stream..."

Oh the cruelty of children! Cue two minute pep talk about how worms can swim and how her grandfather would now be happy and having fun swimming around in the big river...

Just lucky that nobody stamped on him or cut him in half, that would have been far more difficult to explain!

Speccy Speccy Four Eyes

Something strange happened this morning...

I was sitting having a wee ponder about what aspect of my high-flying, non-stop action life I could write a wee blog entry about when an email popped into my inbox. [What's strange about that ya plonker? That's what is supposed to happen...]

This email was from Friends Reunited, you know the site that everyone signed up to a few years ago, making its owners millionaires in the process. The site that put you back in contact with people you knew from school but had lost touch with. The site that let you to swap emails with said lost contacts, thus enabling you to realise why you hadn't bothered to keep in touch with them in the intervening years... You know, that one.

Anyhoo, the email was from Friends Reunited in conjunction with Optical Express, the opticians. They have clubbed together to bring me an offer I might like...

Now, I do wear glasses and have done since about primary 5. These days specs are pretty cool. There are lots of different designer styles from which to choose to help you obtain the right 'look'. Even the kids have wide range of styles to choose from.

Not in my day.

When I went to school the choice for boys, unless your parents were loaded, was National Health spectacle frames in brown "horn rimmed", or black. Neither of these choices made the young TK look cool. This problem became compounded when as part of the day to day rough and tumble of the Scottish Education system both spectacle legs became broken and had to be repaired with tape until it was time to get new ones (an annual occurrence). This was not a good look. At all. Ever.

Wearing specs at school in the 70's was most definitely not cool. The taunts of "Speccy Four Eyes" and "Speccy Speccy Spazz Face" were never too far away. These days there are no doubt rules to protect the occularly challenged from the slightest chance of ridicule, back in the pre-PC days you were fair game, even for the teachers.

Now Friends Reunited (all about schooldays) and Optical Express (all about glasses) are teaming up to send me emails because they think I might be interested...

Is this random, or is there a special section on the FR site where 'normal' kids can nominate speccy kids that they remember in order to drive a targetted marketing campaign?

I think we should be told...