My Two-Cents: The Take-A-Break Chair
I just watched the How I Met Your Mother episode where Marshall volunteers in Lily’s class, gets blackmailed by a kindergartener, and has to stand in time-out (in the corner, facing the wall). Later in the show he flips the table on the kindergartener and blackmails him. Side note – if you haven’t watched HIMYM, you should. It’s getting added to my TV show pop-culture staple list with all the other greats: The Office, Parks and Rec, Seinfeld, and It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia. HIMYM gets its own category though because it’s not funny in the way the others are – instead of reaching for the niche droll humor the others embody, it’s just chaotic. The best way to describe it would be iCarly or Victorious for adults.
Anyways – back to my timeout tangent. Marshall’s bit reminded me of timeout in elementary school days. Specifically, a random memory that my brain has found sticky for no reason in particular. My hippocampal Elmer’s glue tends to have an affinity for extremely minute and useless childhood memories. This one is no exception – the introduction day of the Take-a-Break chair. It started strong and as expected – our teacher told us all what Take-a-Break was, and the reasons we'd be sent there. Then she blundered, and said we could put ourselves in Take-a-Break. If we thought we needed the break – for a myriad of bullshit reasons a second grader would wanna sit out of fractions or Nouns v. Verbs. This was her key mistake. The rest of the day, all hell broke loose. Take-a-break became a musical chair. There was a damn line to take your turn. It was giving KlubNacht in Dublin a run for its money. (If you don’t know what that is, I linked a podcast talking about the cool lore behind it.) Why was the Take-a-Break chair so popular? Could it be that sometimes, self-deprecation is fun?
I was on the guilty list of 8-year-olds who wanted to try out the Take-a-Break Chair hype. What can I say – if someone jumps off a bridge, I will definitely follow. As long as they look cool doing it. I would never follow someone who looks stupid jumping off a bridge! (Obviously.) The other driving factor behind the class herd mentality was a innate desire to step out of line. To live on the edge. Following the rules can be boring. Sometimes, it’s fun to do self-deprecating things. Which is okay as long as they’re not too self-deprecating. Don’t commit a felony, just go try out the Take-a-Break Chair. It won’t kill you! And it might be a way to get out of Math time.
