"The Moth" and the 6th Grade Election

Fun doesn't always find me, and sometimes I need to be proactive about entertaining myself. And I've felt a little short in the fun department the past few days, and figured I'd create some fun on my own with a little exploration with a Tuesday night field trip. This will sound pretentious and dorky, but I heard a program on NPR recently called "The Moth", which loyal NPR fans will probably be familiar with. I'm not an NPR die-hard, although I do enjoy things like Car Talk, Wait Wait Don't Tell Me, and This American Life when I catch them, and it was completely coincidental that I heard the Moth and an advertisement for their first ever Chicago event at Martyr's.

Anyhow, the Moth is essentially an organization that promotes live story telling at live events called Story Slams. There aren't many rules to the stories, mainly that it can't be scripted, it has to relate to the evening's topic, and it has to be a STORY, not a stand-up routine or one-man (or woman) show, and must be less than 5 minutes. At the start of the night, aspiring storytellers put their name in a hat, and the host draws the names of a few bold souls to step up to the microphone. Stories are judged, a winner is determined, and its kinda like Toastmasters but less corporatey and probably more fun (although I've never attended a Toastmasters meeting).

So tonight's topic at The Moth was "School", and I walked away with a few thoughts. For one, it takes a lot of cojones (guts) to get up in front of a room of strangers and reveal intimate details about one's life. I know I do it on the blog, but I can think about what I'm writing (or at least that's supposed to happen) and I know most of the folks who read this. Second, there's something enjoyable about listening to stories. I watch my nieces and nephew when they hear stories from their parents, grandparents, or myself, and they hang on every word with excitement as to what comes next, or how it ends up. The strange thing is, adults do it as well when they listen to stories. And there's something creepy/compelling/interesting when its a non-fiction story from a total stranger. And the final thing I thought as I walked out of there is that laughter (especially when shared with the audience) is good for the soul.

I'd like to say I heard stories about people's school experiences that blew me away, but none of them bear repeating. For the most part, the storytellers did an excellent job under the circumstances, and most had me laughing at some point. Of course, there were a few lemons in the bunch, but even those folks I admired for their courage, honesty, and willingness to challenge themselves. I kept thinking to myself, "nothing from my school years was interesting enough to tell these people about," but about midway through the evening I thought about the story I would tell if I somehow had the courage, willingness, and/or interest in getting up before an audience of complete strangers. That story is the 6th Grade Election.

I'll try to keep my story brief, but figured I'd share it here. And I know this is written, so feel free to interject a number of "ahhs", "ummms", and "likes" if you want to get a sense for what I'd sound like on stage. Its a bad habit of mine, especially when I'm nervous.

In the 6th grade, there were elections for a few officer positions. Looking back on it, I have no idea what these elected officials actually did, why there needed to be elections for said positions, or why I felt the need to run for one of the positions. But somehow I decided it was a good idea to run for class secretary--one of the few elected positions I thought I had a chance to win. In the weeks leading up to the election, candidates running for more senior positions (President, Vice President, Treasurer) took the time to create fliers/posters and get the word out that they wanted other 12 year olds to give them their votes. Some even had catchy slogans or buttons for their classmates to remember when they stepped in to the ballot box.

As my mom likes to beat in to my head, I'm the kind of kid that never really applied himself in school, and the same was true for that 6th grade election. I didn't do a lot of work to campaign for votes, and recruited two close friends (Charlie Sierra and Juliet Mike) to manage my campaign. Our campaign strategy consisted of the two of them coming to my house, making a poster, hanging it up in school, and taking our chances when the election came. My opponent in this election was a woman we'll call Lima Golf, who we knew from a few classes, but I think our collective 'strategy' was that I could beat her with my charm, handsome looks, and the fact that most of the 6th grade probably didn't give a shit who the class secretary was.

The story gets interesting when a girl we'll call Mike Golf enters the picture. Mike was the most popular girl in the 6th grade, and although she and I became friends in high school we did not see eye to eye at age 12. In fact, there was deep animosity we shared for each other. I don't know what the root cause was of our hatred for each other, but things got hostile at some party when she touched a nerve and I went Incredible Hulk on her.

Tangent: most who know me as an adult have never seen this side of me, but at one point I had a switch that could flip from calm to rage in mere seconds. I don't know where that came from, but I have a temper, and its tough to shut it down once its go time.

So Mike and I were at some social event, throwing verbal jabs at each other and eventually it came to blows. I probably shouldn't admit this publicly, but yes, I did fight a girl in 6th grade. In the aftermath to follow, Mike made a point of turning most of the 6th grade girls against me (I won them back in 7th grade once I began to shave), but the timing could not have been worse. Our little fight had come in the weeks prior to the election, and as any good politician knows, you don't hit girls in the week leading up to an election.

But I was still optimistic, as were my trusty campaign managers and when election day came I cast my ballot with confidence that I'd be the 6th grade secretary. Well, as you can probably guess by my tone, I lost that election. And I've never returned to any elected position since then, and probably never will. Although if I do, I'll make sure to keep my hands off women in the weeks prior to the election.

So that's my story, albiet a dorky and horrific one for those who only know me as an adult. Probably not one I would have loved to tell in front of 200 random strangers, but hope you enjoyed it. As for the Moth, I'll probably check it out the next event on October 27 when the topic is "Firsts", and in the meantime I'll be thinking about an interesting story to share with you all in the days prior to or after the event. And if you're curious about the Moth but don't live in Chicago or feel like attending in person, there's a podcast on itunes you can subscribe to and listen to tonight or highlights from previous Story Slams...here's a link from their site.