To Hell With Good Intentions

Missing Mclusky

In middle school we attended an assembly on brain and spinal cord injuries. The whole affair was pretty serious. They even had victims of various accidents give accounts of their ordeals. One boy with some pretty severe brain damage talked very slowly about how "I used to be just like you. I was a straight-A student . . ." et cetera. Then the phrase, " . . . I worked at McDonalds. . . ."

I snickered. The McDonald's commercial! In a room of one thousand students, I was the only one to make a noise. I tried to stop--I really did!--but I couldn't hold it in. Hunched over in my seat, I put my hands in my mouth and bit as hard as possible. I could hear people commenting about how rude I was but I just couldn't help it. They don't let you leave assemblies. What could I do? I began crying from the laughing and the shame and the tooth marks.