One of the best parts of teaching college students is that I can use them as a test audience for story ideas.
Plus, if I play it right, I can turn my focus group work into a teachable moment. I am all about the multi-tasking.
For the past few weeks, the subject of anecdotes has come up in all of my classes. Anecdotes, which are vaguely amusing stories that have a beginning, middle and end, are great leads for both written stories and public speeches. Everyone loves an anecdote.
I used to work in the episode of "M*A*S*H" where Radar had to write an anecdote for his writing correspondence course. It turns out, however, that the modern young adult does not obsessively watch "M*A*S*H" reruns like my generation did. Kids these days.
As an example of an anecdote, I've started offering the following story:
The Boy, who will turn 4 in July, still sleeps in his crib. I'm sure this is against the advice of almost every parenting expert on the planet, but it works for those folks who live in my house. He loves his crib so much that, during a recent time-out where we had chucked him in said crib until he could remember how civilized preschoolers behave, the Boy climbed out of his cage, grabbed a book, and then climbed back in.
This is not how a kid who's ready to move into a big boy bed acts, right? Given how quickly he is growing, he'll have to make the change sooner rather than later. But for now, he can keep folding himself into one of his crib's corners for the night.
The Boy, who in 10 years will hate me for mentioning this, is still working on the whole potty training deal. He gets the idea, mind you, and is willing to play along if you mention stepping up to the porcelain bowl and letting fly. If he is the slightest bit interested in anything else, however, there will probably be a puddle before too much time has passed.
All of the above will be important in a minute.
Our normal bedtime routine, when both my husband and I are home, is that we divide and conquer.
We jointly supervise the brushing of the teeth, which is a lot like the running of the bulls but with more whining, then he takes the Diva into her room for a story and tucking. I do the same for the Boy.
He gets two stories because his are much shorter. He climbs up into his crib. I turn out the light and he's required to find his own way to dreamland. He does this, usually, by singing.
Given how wee our house is, Scott and I spend the next hour being serenaded by snippets of songs by various artists, like the soundtrack to some uber-cute K-tel commercial. On the recent spin list are a few numbers from "Blue's Clues," a song that I can't figure out that involves the lyrics "by the bay" with a verse about pajamas, and "Birdhouse in Your Soul" by They Might Be Giants.
Usually, the music will taper off and the Boy will sleep.
Every now and again, the dulcet tones of musical mayhem will be replaced by grousing or thudding. The thuds are generally caused by the Boy flinging toys out of his crib. We don't know why they must be flung ,but we respect his right to fling them. We also tend to ignore the thuds.
The grousing requires parental intervention. Which is where we were one night a few weeks ago.
My husband, bless him, levered himself out of the couch and went upstairs. I saw him open the Boy's door _ our house is, again, small _ and then there was a pause. The light in the Boy's room flicked on.
"Son," my husband said, "why aren't you wearing any pants?"
It's hard to not hear a sentence like that and not explosively burst into laughter. Which is exactly what I did.
The Boy's first answer to the question was a demonstration of a tautology. "I'm not wearing any pants," he replied, "because I'm not wearing any pants." It's his new go-to rhetorical strategy for most questions, if only because he's discovered that adults don't know what to do with his logic, such as it is.
When Scott came back downstairs, he pointed out that our youngest was clothed only in his pajama shirt, which meant he had stripped off both his pants and a night training pant. The Boy discovered, just as he was falling asleep, that he really needed to pee. So he did what any right-thinking child would do, which is take off his bottoms in preparation for the event. Only he was sleepy enough that he couldn't work out what he needed to do next.
Fortunately, he chose to yell until someone rescued him. Otherwise, he might have been forced to give up his crib _ specifically, its mattress _ much sooner than he'd intended. It could have been messier, is what I'm saying.
Which, I've explained to my students, is why this story works as an introductory anecdote. If I'd left myself more space in this column, I could then follow with how this story about my boy and his lack of pants is the perfect illustration for a crucial bit of life wisdom: it can always be messier.
And, yes, this will be on the test.
Adrienne Martini is a freelance writer, instructor at the State University College at Oneonta and Hartwick College, mom to Maddy and Cory, wife to Scott, and author of "Hillbilly Gothic," published by the Free Press.
