WHEN YOU WENT TO SCHOOL TOGETHER

14.09.04


Poor kids, school started. The sprinkling of holy water is over and they will be getting their books from today. They bought their backpacks weeks before (those who won’t use last year’s backpack). School stuff is expensive, dear all, even if the ‘Jumbo’ stores advertise the opposite. They still sell bags with Phoivos and Athena; so as not to forget them.

Every year there are tons of ads with Paxos and Niki and every other brand of backpacks at this time. They all have stamps of painted creatures that are real monsters! We didn’t have such crap. Only some turtle-ninjas and only the good ones with the round eyes, not like those of the next generation (by the way, did anybody notice that difference?). The new ones are mean and wild. They go along with Yu Gee O and the mean Pokemons. Only Pikatsu is a sweetheart.

Nonetheless, the kids buy those horrible backpacks passionately. I remember I had Niels Holgerson on my first one. What a cool guy Niels was, who had the company of Akka the goose. Anyway, every time I see those ads I become mean. I think: ‘Time for school, my dear heroes. Go through this torture like we all did. I’ll be coming home and posting messages on my weblog and you’ll be doing your homework for the next day.’.

TO THE TEDDY BEAR WITH LOVE

My teddy bear reminded me of extraordinary things. First of all, my primary school’s library, which had a ton of comic besides children’s books. Issues of Asterix and Lucky Luke were in and out of the school backpacks in nanoseconds. I couldn’t figure out how it was possible to read those stories with the teachers’ consent, while magazines like ‘Mickey Mouse’ were forbidden at my house. This was precisely the issue here. I was not old enough to separate true claims to trash from true claims to greatness. They were all the same to me. Until I met Lucky Luke, this poor and lonesome cowboy.

I borrowed five issues at a time and, since I always was vain and too proud of myself, reading was not enough for me. I wanted to sketch Lucky on my own and thus make my own stories. Only one schoolmate dared to compete with me. Until I die, I will believe that my cowboy was the best. My desk as covered in sketches of him made with pencil. This is why I was poor at spelling or dumb at mathematics. I didn’t pay much attention to any of my courses. While the teachers were talking, I was sketching and if somebody happened to ask me something I used to catch the last phrase and invent an answer right then and there. I kept doing this until university, where nobody asks you who you are, what you do or why you are not paying attention. The course has to be really fantastic in order not to be distracted.

In fact, it has to be as fantastic as walking through landscapes of the Wild Wild West, rambling in camps of Native Americans or hunting the Daltons outside the prison. There was noone to tell me that Lucky Luke was also a cop. He was the good guy of the West, always wanting to impose the law, punish the bad guys and contribute to the extermination of Native Americans; he did all this while on the back of poor Dolly (there have been disagreements regarding Dolly’s gender, mare or horse). True, nobody ever explained to me why I shouldn’t admire so much that cowboy with the dirty (wash-‘n’-wear or just wear) blue jeans. What could I do? I loved him like crazy. I asked my mother to buy all the issues for me as a present for my birthday. I even got a gun with plastic bullets. I was pointing at the whole house; I even told my sister to stand on the wall. She was eating a little piece of chocolate and I wanted to break it in two exactly as Lucky was breaking the bottles of beer. I finally ‘shot’ her on Adam’s apple and cut her breath for a few seconds. Not too bad. (Dearest Jenny, I wonder if you remember that: or am I making this up?)

I had a second gun too, the one with the caps that we used to blow on Resurrection and Carnival. I was fed up with it soon. I crawled on the balcony. When nobody was looking at me, I threw it down from the 6th floor and saw it breaking into a thousand pieces. I hadn’t even thought that this fake gun could really kill if it fell on somebody’s head. Luckily there was noone down there and we didn’t mourn for casualties. This was unbelievable to my eyes: an iron thing turn to dust. For some strange reason, the idols died at the same time. No more gun, no more Lucky Luke, no nothing. Even my magazines disappeared as if by magic. I lent them all to my schoolmates and they never returned them to me. This was a good lesson to take care with those who I trust my favourite things. I believed I would never lend anything to I had a second gun too, the one with the caps that we used to blow on Resurrection and Carnival. I was fed up with it soon. I crawled on the balcony. When nobody was looking at me, I threw it down from the 6th floor and saw it breaking into a thousand pieces. I hadn’t even thought that this fake gun could really kill if it fell on somebody’s head. Luckily there was noone down there and we didn’t mourn for casualties. This was unbelievable to my eyes: an iron thing turn to dust. For some strange reason, the idols died at the same time. No more gun, no more Lucky Luke, no nothing. Even my magazines disappeared as if by magic. I lent them all to my schoolmates and they never returned them to me. This was a good lesson to take care with those who I trust my favourite things. I believed I would never lend anything to anyone again and it never even crossed my mind that I could be holding others’ stuff at my house. And yet I lend almost everything, including things that belong to them and I happen to possess and preserve them as if they belong to me.