Vindication!

Some of you may have read my previous posting on the evils of Silly Bandz; a delicious evil that I was party to bringing about upon some unknowing friends, parents to two youngsters of elementary school age. And, as was my devilish plan, they became obsessed with the rubber outlines.

Well, yesterday I was furnished with a memo sent to those parents from their kids’ elementary school, entitled, innocuously enough, “Important Announcement.”

The memo began, “As you are aware ‘Silly Bandz’ have become quite popular with our students.”

Now, I worked in the community school system for twelve years, so I know the strange taxonomy of typography within the world of middle level educators. I know, for instance, that the superfluous use of quotation marks around a word is simple indication of snarky indignation. But to pull out the boldness of superfluous quotation marks with italicization, well, that is something that only the most righteously indignant are able to pull off with distinction. Now, some might think that all caps is really the pinnacle, but I can tell you that, at least in the world of education, all caps is merely an indication of authorial douchebaggery.

So, seeing “Silly Bandz” really piqued my interest. I scanned: “very inappropriate game,” “impact our school environment,” “linked to sexual overtones.” Seriously?

Oh my god!

Okay, so, according to someone, the color of the “SILLY BANDS” apparently equates to some kind of touching desire all the way from yellow (meaning hand holding) to black (meaning brown-chicken-brown-cow). Or, perhaps it means that they have already participated in that activity, like the elementary school version of the prison self-tattooed dripping tear under the eye. Suddenly “I killed a man in prison, mmm hmmmm, can’t you see my tear tat?” has become “I rubbed knees with Billy Brogan, like, can’t you see my aqua-colored Princess Fiona ‘SILLY BANDZ’?”

Okay, I’m not sure how much stock to put into this thing, though I love the whole let’s-not-let-the-kids-pull-one-over-on-us paranoia of it. I too would have been right in there banning the “BANDZ.” After-all, I am the teacher who forced a kid to turn his “Senior Rita’s Fish Taco” shirt inside-out causing him, according to his mother, undue humiliation and social damage. We found out later that she had purchased the shirt for him. My administrator had to explain the, shall we say, pejorative nature of the phrase, at which point the mother’s head exploded indignant momma-bear-ituded all over the administrator’s office. I never heard whether she recanted her indignation when her precious snowflake proved his understanding of the phrase’s pejorative nature in the downstairs bathroom with a willing sophomore coed. But I digress.

Anyhoo, I went online to check out this sordid tale and found a couple of quotes I would like to relay to you:

They are made of rubber like rubber bands i mean what can they possibly mean. The point i am trying to make is that silly bands don’t mean anything.

or the poignant and enigmatic

They dont mean anything there [sic] just fun bracelets that every one can no matter your age . But jelly brace do mean things

and my personal favorite

Silly bands are made of people. People!

and I believe from FoxNews

I dont think they mean anything but i think they cause skin cancer =(

or the one that encapsulates the thoughts of half of all middle school boys

All colors mean sex

and the other half of middle school boys

blue

then the one with the prison motif

They do meen something but its not just about the color for example if you where [sic] a black leopard it means you killed someone. So yeah.

and the quote that I think clarifies the school’s position

They dnt mean nothin them boyz r just nasty lol

and finally, the one that clarifies my position

Oh dear lord. There is a check spelling button for a purpose!

So yeah. I think that’s cleared it all up for me.

By they way, honey, I’m wearing my red fireman hat “SILLY BANDZ” band. Were you coming home for lunch?

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