All I wanna do is zoom-zoom-zoom-zoom and a boom-boom, just shake your rump

I lifted my brush. The masterpiece was complete. My monochromatic self-portrait was ready for teacher approval. Various shades of blue underscored the angst of my third grade hell.

Three long weeks of work had accomplished this. Well. Three forty-five minute sessions during art class at school had accomplished this. Thirty-five if you take the time out it took the class to walk from our classroom to the art room. Plus, we all get a free water fountain visit. Regardless, this masterpiece took at least an hour of solid brush on paper creation.

With great humility I presented my work to my teacher. I smiled as she did. As she told me how great it was and to put it on the drying rack I knew ... I knew that I would finally win that blue ribbon at the art fair this year.

Two months later my art teacher tried to get me to submit my pen and paper drawing of a baseball cap instead of my masterpiece. That piece of shit only took me ten minutes to draw. It clearly sucked anyway. I entered my masterpiece. I took home no ribbons.

Eighth grade rolled around. The grade school art fair continued to mock me and my family. My sister, now a college art and design student had never taken home the illustrious blue ribbon. It looked like neither would I. To be brutally honest, I don't think I even opened my eyes while creating the art work I submitted in eighth grade to the art fair. I would not get my hopes up this year.

So I lied. I opened my eyes. We stared at some object (a bowl of fruit) and drew it without lifting our pencil. We were not allowed to look at our paper until we were finished. Some people ended up with a drawing that looked like a bowl of fruit drawn by Michael J Fox. Mine looked like Jackson Pollock threw up after eating a box of graphite lead. Needless to say I won that blue ribbon.

The moral of the story, as always, is that if you want to succeed in America in a competition involving children ... suck. Be mediocre at best. The judges see talent and say "They are good, they do not need this blue ribbon." If you are god awful, but make it seem like you tried they will say "Bless them, we should encourage their efforts!"

In this way we ensure that our best and brightest at any given field get fed up and quit or are too demoralized to try. In this way we ensure those with no talent stick with things they are terrible with and do not find their niche and a way to best help society. In this way we are destroying America.

(As always Sunday is a work of fiction ... in no world would I ever win a blue ribbon in art class. I was never good enough at art to justify actually winning and never bad enough to get the sympathy points. My sister however was unjustly robbed in her illustrious grade school career.)