Boners and Washing Dogs….
In third grade, I remember seeing a kid laugh so hard he fell out of his chair. We had an English book and there was a story about a boy taking his muddy dog to a swanky place that washed dogs. There was an illustration, and it showed the dog covered in suds and on the side there was a shampoo bottle. EXCEPT….only part of the bottle was drawn, and the writing said ‘Dog Poo.’
I think this kid was the first to spot it; he was always in trouble. In the silence of the room, he erupts into laughter and eventually slides off his chair. More of us began to examine the picture, and now the chaos starts. 30 kids howling uncontrollably, teacher yelling. Of course, she gets the first kid down to the principal’s office. But the rest of the day, someone remembered the bottle and snickered. Forecast for the day: Demonic laughter followed by sporadic giggling.
Move ahead to fifth grade. The teacher is explaining our next assignment, which is to write sentences with grammatical mistakes, and see who put the most mistakes in the sentence. EXCEPT…..he calls this assignment ‘Boner Papers.’ Now I own up–I had no clue. And neither did the teacher, apparently. One kid knows and he starts giggling. Well, luckily, it’s time for recess. And this kid can barely contain himself, tears are running down his cheeks, he can barely speak.
Oh Shit, that’s what ‘boner’ means!!
The teacher doubled down in passing days, reminding us when our ‘Boner Papers’ were due. Each time minor giggles from the boys. Eye Rolling from the girls. And say……how the hell did the girls find out about this anyway? Did someone squeal???