Short Presentation

SAM, nine, is lit center stage. SAM is quite short. He holds a piece of paper. He is quite nervous and his way of speaking makes it clear he is reading from the paper, pausing at awkward times or running together sentences.

SAM
This is my report on what I want to be when I grow up and the challenges I might face. When I grow up I want to be tall. I will be six-foot-five-inches, and when people meet me they will say things like, “wow you are tall, how is the weather up there.” Sometimes I will even hit my head on things because they are low to the ground, or else I will have to duck when I walk up stairs in people’s basements. Sometimes I will play pick-up basketball and I will be okay at it and no one will say, “Sam you are too short to ever be good at sports, just go home.” When I visit my parents for Thanksgiving my mom will ask me to get cans of cranberry sauce from the top shelf for her and I will not have to stand on a chair, and afterwards my mom will hug me and tell me she loves me and my sister the same amount even if my sister is pretty and good at sports and I have early onset backne.

SAM pauses then continues.

SAM
One challenge I might face when I grow up to be tall is that I will lose all my friends. It will be sad. I will be too tall for them, and it will make me sad to lose them as friends but I will be tall and they will be short so what can you do. I will make new taller friends, and we will all play pick-up basketball together, and they will say, “Sam, you are so tall and handsome and the way you only listen to soundtracks from anime is cool.” And I will say, “yes, we are all tall and we all love anime soundtracks.” And they will say, “That is true. Let’s go to Dave & Busters for dinner.” And after that we will go to Dave & Busters for dinner and Eva, the girl that I like from Ms. Valnetto’s class, will be there. She will be grown up too, and she will say, “it is okay that you spilled popcorn butter on me at Maia’s birthday party, I did not mean those things I yelled at you about how ugly and weird and short you were.” I will shrug it off and ask if she wants to watch me play skee-ball, and she will say, “okay,” and I will be tall enough to put the ball right into the hundred hole, and with all the points I win I will get two stuffed animals that are Mr. Resetti from the Wii game Animal Crossing, and I will give one to her, and she will kiss my cheek. That was my report on what I want to be when I grow up and the challenges I might face.

Investigation Reveals Fatal Error in 2006 Mission Quinoa Order

MISSION PARK - A recent investigation at Mission Dining Hall revealed an error in an old order for quinoa, the Mexican grain known for being rich in protein and fiber. Investigators report that the mistake in the order - placed in October 2006 -  resulted in a surplus quantity of quinoa in the magnitude of ten thousand. This slip-up proved fatal when the quinoa, delivered too quickly, ended up crushing a Mission chef.

"We were hearing a lot about quinoa," a dining hall source reports, "so we thought we'd try to order some for a dinner to see how people liked it. Well someone must have typed a bunch of extra zeroes because we ended up ordering like five truck fulls of the stuff. We were knee deep in quinoa for a week. One of the chefs drowned."

Investigation revealed that the surplus quinoa was eventually stored in empty singles in Dennett Basement and has been served ever since.

"Sometimes students come in joking and acting surprised about the quinoa," the source said. "For me, it's no joke. I still have nightmares."