IF WE MUST, WE MUST

I am always delighted when I find something to read that is light and fluffy and funny.  Of course, funny is in the mind of the beholder – what I find funny is not necessarily what everyone finds funny. 

And sometimes it may just be my mind that is aberrating….. but

Here’s how my latest funny goes:

Seems that some middle school girls back east decided to heighten awareness of a very serious health issue for women, that of breast cancer, by purchasing and wearing some rubber bracelets stamped with the following:

When these girls wore the bracelets to school, they were suspended.  The parents of the girls sued.  This case arrived at the appellate court, which found that the girls were wrongly punished, citing a 1969 Supreme Court case.  Without going into details (since most newspapers have been carrying the story that seems to move from the front page to the op-ed page and back with some regularity), the issue seems to be: Were the girls denied their freedom of speech?

 I wonder, can boys wear these bracelets and would it mean the same thing?  Does the meaning of “lewd” (as related to the term “boobie”) fit into anyone’s opinion?  Is “boobie” lewd, cute, or clever? Or is it now part of our vernacular and not worth cogitating about? And is there a difference between women wearing a similar bracelet and middle school girls wearing it?  Ah, there are all kinds of things to think about.   

And laugh about. 

My own reaction is this:  OH, FOR GOODNESS SAKES!  We all know junior high school (the old familiar term for us old folks) kids are busting at the seams to grow up and out of childhood.  Don’t make anything more of this than it is. It too shall pass.

 But it does remind me of when my own daughters were passing through this stage, all very close to the same time.  One day a gaggle of female twerps, led by my oldest daughter, arrived at the house after school and marched out to the garage, “to practice some cheers, Mom” I was told.  I heard the chanting and lots of giggling, so I peeked out the bedroom window to see what they were doing.

Here they all were in a row, arms bent at the elbow and in rhythm forcing both elbows back and forth as they chanted the following:

 We must!

We must!

We must develop our bust!

The bigger the better,

The tighter the sweater,

The boys are depending on us!

 

That was a long time ago.  The daughters are mostly grandmas now.  Kids are kids and middle school kids especially will think up things like this.  We can’t control everything, but we sure can laugh when the occasion calls for it.