Tha' bug life, yo

Some of the Academy's students have been known to play a game called "Flinch", where the object is to do something that makes someone else flinch. We use the word "something" here as a euphemism for "nearly maim and cripple". Intervention is generally required to minimize the carnage.


The Headmaster has recently acquired a disturbing propensity for flinching - a trait that he feels is very unbecoming of someone of his age and stature. (Oh yes, he's got stature. He's got stature coming out of his butt. We mean that figuratively, not literally like those old people you get behind in the grocery checkout who have stature literally escaping loudly from their butts. But the Headmaster chooses to wield his stature discreetly, which pleases the Headmistress. As for tenure, he's still working on that.)

The Headmaster's flinching is not to be confused with his nervous tic. The latter is related to the Academy's dwindling endowment, the former is related to various and sundry creepy-crawlies that inhabit the grounds and jump out to scare the beejeezus out of him.

It is simply amazing that the smallest of creatures can make us flinch. I mean, here the greatest predator on the planet jumps at the sight of a little bitty spider. Flinching must be built into our DNA.

Picture this scene: An idyllic day in the life of cro-magnon family.

Mr. Caveman struts around the cave swinging his club, being all stature-esque and everything. Mrs. Caveman demurs. Mr. Caveman's friend Eddie, parked on the sofa for the last three days, looks on in admiration, not noticing Mr. Caveman at all. And at that moment, when perhaps Mr. Caveman contemplates the meaning of that look of admiration, a little cave spider happens to bite him on the toe. Whereupon Mr. Caveman is dead within three days. Eddie's sense of opportunity is dampened slightly when he realizes that Mrs. Caveman produced twelve homeschooled cave-brats, and she is currently blocking the exit. From this point on, spiders have tended to make men drop their clubs and jump onto countertops screaming like little girls.


The Headmaster was recently bitten by a distant cousin of that early cave-spider, and found himself attached to the bed for days with no conceivable way to get out. The Headmistress, not known for demurishness, ordered him up and to the doctor. Five hundred milligrams of ibuprofen later, the Headmaster was back strutting around the Academy swinging his club, baby!

Tigers developed teeth and claws to survive. Insects developed toxins to survive. Man developed Naproxen. So watch out little spider-hopper-tick-thingy. I am not afraid of you and I will beat your ass.



(note - "I am not afraid of you and I will beat your ass" is the title of the eleventh full-length album by Hoboken-based alt-rock band Yo La Tengo. Hey yo, what do you expect from a Jersey band?)