Devon and Harris were the names of the two most irritating brats I ever met. They had a laugh that grated on every nerve in my body. They were also incredibly stupid and had no idea how to pass a test on their own. The teacher’s name was Mrs. McNairy and she wasn’t the brightest either because Devon and Harris had seats too close to each other. The thing of it is this: Devon was on my left with his body odor and Harris was to the right with a constant barrage of insults and an endless supply of thumb tacks. I don’t know the name of the guy that invented thumbtacks but something tells me he was a real jerk. At least four times a day I’d find a strategically placed tack in my chair. I am not as dumb as the kids seem to think. I learned to be careful about where I put my ass because the idiot Devon put one of those things on my seat the first day of school. I yelped as it sent me airborne and almost bounced off the ceiling. Everyone erupted with laughter as I felt my face heat up and make a mockery of me.
It really pissed me off but like I said I’m not dumb enough to fall for the same trick twice. Anyway, we had a vocabulary test and the two giggling baboons were up to their usual no good tricks as we sat. I am not a genius but spelling is a simple thing to do. I was ready for the test but shaky because I knew Devon and Harris would try to cheat off my paper. Being unpopular sucks especially because even the teachers think you’re no good. I was thinking that maybe McNairy would think either I gave the right answers to those two or I was cheating off their papers. After we all got our blank slips of yellow paper with horizontal margins, I jotted my name and the date down and waited for the test to begin. That’s when I had a brilliant flash of insight. The creepy turds would get answers from my paper alright, but they wouldn’t get the right ones.
I grinned inwardly as the big-nosed McNairy started to spout our vocabulary words. The hairs in her nose looked ready to free themselves from the cavern as I watched her try to invent sentences using the words.
“Momentarily, I will take the garbage out Momentarily.”
With Devon’s crummy odor breathing at my neck I put the word M-O-M-E-N-T-I-L-L-I-E on my yellow paper in very light number one pencil. As soon as he was done copying the word I noticed Harris was on the other side acting like he’d gotten something stuck in his eye as he snatched the word. As soon as the test was done they grinned at each other. One good thing about McNairy is that she always gave kids a few seconds to double-check their work before handing it to her. I used that precious minute to repair my spelling while Devon and Harris laughed and schemed together. After recess we got the test results and it was my turn to laugh.
McNairy had the most rolling eyes as she spoke to the turds. “Devon I can’t believe even you are this much of a dope. Cheating is never a good idea but really, Harris is the slowest dope we have in class. The two of you are going to have to see me after class because this is not only deplorable but also absurd.”
They wanted to pound me but couldn’t do so under the circumstances. I smiled proudly at McNairy and then at Devon and Harris. I got an “A+”. The plus was for good penmanship and chuckled loudly as class ended that day and the turds remained with big-nose.
Standing in the office of Friendly Toys, Herb Fosdyke beamed as his supervisor, a thin woman with narrow eyes and a long nose sent him a silent half-grin. Her name was Olivia and she’d been running the quality control department for the last six months. When Devon James and Harris Mitchell were accused of screwing off and not working in favor of making the skinnier workers do everything, Olivia called Herb to ask if he’d had any history with either of them. Fosdyke had become a toy engineer and found a supervisory position at the company. He had no idea that his two chief tormentors from grade school had been hired.
Olivia said, “Okay Herb, basically the company goofed when they hired these two? Rather than fire them on the spot,” she smiled with a hint of sadism, “I’m curious about what we can do.”
Herb was a decent guy who never bore ill will to anyone. While he mulled over her proposal he couldn’t help but ask himself: "I wonder how many morons forget the crap they put other people through when they were kids?"
Which reminds me the lesson to be learned here: If you’re nice to people and don’t make them jump out of their seats from thumbtacks you won’t have problems down the line. I don’t know, what do you think?
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