There once was a lad who was quite taken with a lady friend of his. He was often tempted to tell her how she felt, but could never work up the nerve. One day, he went into a jewelry shop and bought a lovely golden. He couldn't give the chain away after not giving it to her, and he couldn't just throw it away, so he kept it. He kept the chain for the rest of his life, in case he saw her and could then give it to her, but he never did.

Everyone knew it was a harmless tradition. It was a little creepy, but the students of the high school had been doing it since as far back as anyone could remember. It was rarely spoken of, but was easily tolerated and was rrely even mentioned any longer. Until this year, a student did some research into the roots of the tradition and was horrified to discover its dark past and its implications in the present. This student tried to speak out against the majority opinion, tried to bring the terrible truth the light, but he was dismissed as a fool. One lone voice stood ot against everyone else, those who might have listened were afraid of becoming outcasts by association with him.

Boy, did he look silly when he found out he was wrong.

"Hmm, licorice."

"Licorice?"

"Yeah, licorice."

"What about it?"

"Well, I find it delicious."

"Good for you!"

"Yeah, I thought so."

When I grow up, I wanna be an astronaut. I wanna fly up into space and see the Earth really tiny beneath me. In my mind it's like a shooter marble out the window. I wanna go on spacewalks outside the ship and fix it. I wanna look around and see how big the universe is and count the stars. I wanna walk on the moon where there's no gravity and JUMP! I wanna float around in the ship and eat my dinner out of a tube and drink Tang. I drink Tang anyway, but I wanna drink it in space It can float around like bubble of Tang in space. I want to throw em and ems at other astronauts! I wanna do experiments and help the scientists back on Earth. I wanna talk to Houston and tell him that everything's A-OK up here.

When I grow up, I wanna be an astronaut. Or maybe a fireman.

"Why did the chicken cross the playground?"

"I don't know, why?"

"To get to the other slide! Ahahahahaha! I'm brilliant."

"You know, I've heard that one before, I was jsut humoring you."

"Oh."