Good Grades

This carton of eggs is smart
because they're graded with an A.
But what subjects did they study?
And who would teach an egg? 
Did these eggs just go through high school,
or are they college grads?
Who paid for all that schooling?
Was it scholarships, or their dads?
If they went to university,
the level of study matters.
Is their degree a doctorate,
or is it just a master's? 
With all this education,
they could better their situation.
These eggs should be out workin'
instead of sitting in a carton.

-B.C. Byron
Grade A eggs and they’re just wasting those brains lazing about in a carton
Check out my book on Amazon

This poem is a bit innaccurate. Egg grades, surprisingly, have nothing to do with education levels of the eggs or the chickens. It turns out that eggs are actually graded according to their level of bounciness. The more bouncy the eggs, the better the grade is on the carton. So, if you really want to see an egg bounce high, buy grade A cartons. Make sure to test them by throwing on a hard kitchen floor or a wall. Your parents will try to discourage this experiment as they probably hadn’t heard this fact about eggs. But don’t worry, they will be impressed when they see what happens after you drop a whole carton of eggs on the floor at once. Grade A eggs zipping everywhere is sure to delight them. Just don’t tell them you learned about this from B.C. Byron. They’ll be more impressed if they think you figured it out by yourself.

Other websites will tell you that eggs are graded by how clean the shell is, size of the yolk, color, and general quality. Blah, blah, blah. By now you’ve learned to trust your favorite poet on these important matters. Well, I’m off the buy some eggs for bouncing and a roll of paper towels.

I Can Fix That

Stick it on with tape.
Stick it on with glue.
Stick it on with chewing gum.
Stick it down with screws.
Stick it with some staples.
Stick it with a spear.
Even maple syrup would probably adhere.
It looks a little wonky,
but at least it works, my Dear.
Don't like the way I fix things?
You can stick it in your ear.

-B.C. Byron
You asked me to fix it.
You didn’t say “make it pretty”.
Check out my book on Amazon

This poem reminds me of a trip I went on with the high school jazz band. I was 17 at the time. A bus full of 20 teenagers driving 5 hours to a band competition in another state, only 2 adults to supervise, and later cramming 5 people to each hotel room. What could go wrong? A lot. We barely slept that night and in all the foolish goings on in the wee hours of the morning, we somehow managed to break off half the door frame in one of the rooms. We didn’t have any real tools beside the ones for cleaning spit out if trumpets and saxophones.

We did NOT want to ask for help from the band teacher or hotel clerk. So we got creative in fixing the door frame. Sometimes you just need to lay out the items at hand and think outside the box. We had a pack of gum, blankets, a retainer, shoelaces, and hair gel that had managed to keep a trumpet player’s hair spiked for more than 24 hours. I don’t really see much hair gel being used these days. Maybe kids today know better than to put gelatinous chemicals on their heads, but it IS a nice way to keep a mohawk upright. I think that kid only had to fix his hair once per week and I’m pretty sure he slept with his hair spiked most nights. The Bart-Simpson spikes wouldn’t even crumple when he got smacked on the head for emptying his trumpet’s spit valve on the kid in front of him in class.

We chose the hair gel for our fix. Like the chair that goes with this poem, the door did not look the same afterward. It was crooked, but the hack job wasn’t noticeable from far away and that was good enough to keep us out of trouble. Our trumpet player complained about the expense of using the entire industrial size gel tub as glue. We also heard complaints from the kid we made stay up until 4 a.m. leaning against the door frame while our makeshift adhesive dried. I feel guilty about it now since the next hotel guests probably took the blame for half the wood falling off. That much hair gel also smells… strange. We got the job done.

A wonky, crooked door frame is better than no door frame, right? Questionable. If you don’t like my poems about fixing things, write your own. A wonky poem is better than no poem, right?