I don't mean to pick on Lea Thompson, or women like this spunky '80s girl who gave that little extra bit of gas as the Nazi tanks stalled across the tundra of Russia and the Waffen SS slit their own throats rather than be captured by the Red Hordes in the black heart of '43. . . . .

But such is the spluttering nature of adolescent negativity fanning wide in a smoking column of rusted metal as oil, iron, and blood merge in a clanging, fiery inferno-- the lost, piercing battle-cry! May shrieking Germanic eagles dive from the sky like harriers and inspire me to plunge a dagger into my heart when he realizes that all is Nietzchian ruin!

That, or you could say that high school
is a little bit like "Sea World"!

"Squeak! Squeak!"

Perhaps this bears further explanation. . . . .

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Interestingly enough, Lea Thompson's first role was when she played a perky dolphin trainer down at just such a family-friendly venue. With tan Safari shorts and those telltale cherry-red bangs, she bent over the tank and taught the malleable marine mammals how to perform useful tricks in a "baby voice" like training a puppy, cocking its ear in lovableness.

However, just how "pertinent" jumping through hoops or "barking on command" was to getting along out in the natural world-- free from this artificial enclosure-- was an existential question dolphins weren't equipped with the tongue or glottal stop to ask (-- though their brains were big) nor the owners of "Sea World" could adequately answer (-- though it golly-sure kept them in business!). The staff didn't exactly mistreat the dolphins, but a finer articulation of that wild, untamed animal spirit could be found at nearby "Busch Gardens" where such a woman, of the same trope of Lea Thompson, trained the big cats:

There, the pride of beasts-- much like a high school French class-- spit and hiss and evacuate their bowels in displeasure. But still, lovely Miss Lea Thompson would whistle and clap and cajole, never losing her spunk nor "taking it personally". One "student" might even have even outstretched its claws at her and half-charged, but she kept it back with the benefit of meat bucket and a broomstick with which she bopped it on the snout, whereas it returned to "its seat" on the box. The cats would wave their tails, pounce on the "positive reinforcement" thrown like bloody offal, and howl with displeasure through their food as if it were covered with maggots. . . . .

 (-- it probably was!)

Such is life in secondary education, and not the analogy they make with a pointer, a marker, and a white-board in teacher's colleges. If we didn't "blot out" the god-awful truth, we'd probably turn to drink and despair. Or watch reruns of "Caroline in The City". And for women like Lea Thompson to stay so spunky, they sometimes get lost in the world of gleaming brochures, buckled mini-vans, CD-quality sound, and caged thinking that forgets how wild it can really be.

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By this time, the tank was a bubbling cauldron as the dolphin momentarily disappeared from view.

She bent over to see where he went. . . . .

Years later, the only thing I will say to my poor French teacher once she realized the reason, and ran off screaming as result of THE HORROR when this overly-friendly mammal tried to "knock her into the tank" with a hot-blooded chitter is:

"EVEN DOLPHINS HAVE DICKS!"