Today I will tell you a story. Surprise.

It is a story about my childhood. I know how much my readers are fascinated by that subject, and since I 'm a man of the people, I must acquiesce.

I was in 3rd grade in Florida and my teacher's name was Mrs. Blankenship. It's strange, I can remember her name very easily, but if you were to ask me what I had for dinner every night last week, I'd only reply with a blank stare. You know, it is entirely possible that I've got some sort of short term memory problem.

I was in 3rd grade in Florida and my teacher's name was Mrs. Blankenship. She was a young, kindly schoolteacher who had long dark hair and kept an enormous brown stapler on her desk. We will come to the stapler in a moment.

I was attending Hopkins Elementary and our mascot was the Hawks. Most of what I remember from that time consists of all the fun I had during P.E. and at Recess, but I'm sure I must've learned something, how else would you explain the Doctorate in Astrophysics hanging on the wall in my office?
Yes, well, you could say that I stole it, but does that make it any less mine?

I can remember being in P.E. and playing with one of those giant parachutes, (did everybody have one of those?) and we'd flap it up and run underneath it and pretty much have all the fun it's possible to have with 30 square yards of nylon.
I can remember getting into my first fight on the playground at Hopkins and also honing my kickball skills to that of the all-American that I was in high school, theoretically.

I can remember receiving my first note that said,

"I like you, do you like me? Check yes or no."

And I checked both boxes. What can I say, I was an asshole third grader. Who wasn't?

The young lady who gave me that note was named Kelly, and we sat next to each other in Mrs. Blankenship's class, a mere ten feet away from the stapler.
Nothing much happened with Kelly, cause she was a prude, but it's cool, I got mine.

Which brings us to a particularly restless Thursday afternoon when we all were just sitting and studying our African American Poetry, (it was a good school) and I was, as usual, just staring out the window. And then it came to me.

The grandest idea my third grade mind had ever conceived of. To say that it was Divine Inspiration is giving God himself too much credit. I thought of it all by myself, and it was magnificent.

I sat at my ugly desk, and a beautiful question floated down to me. A question that simply needed to be answered, and god dammit, I was gonna answer it. I know you want to hear this question, but before I divulge it, just know that I thought of it first and it has already been answered, so don't get any funny ideas.
I'm going to write the question now, probably after this very sentence, and I want to be sure that you have prepared yourself. Ok. You are ready. The question was:

"What would it be like to have my thumbs stuck together?"

Ta-daa! Do you see the genius? No, you don't.
That's because it was a stupid question.
But, nonetheless, it had to be answered. By me.
I thought to myself, "How can I get these two little guys stuck together?" and just as I finished the thought, I looked up, and my eyes landed on The Stapler.

It was an ordinary Swingline, the preferred brand of educators everywhere, and when I described it as "enormous" earlier I may have been embellishing a little to heighten the drama.

So, I'd made my decision, I was going to staple my thumbs together.
It's important to note that I was NOT being brave, tough, or cavalier in any way. It simply didn't occur to me that it might hurt. It does hurt, a lot, but I'm getting ahead of myself.

So, it was time. I casually stood up as not to draw attention to the brilliant plan that I had concocted and I made my way towards the front of the class where the teacher, and more importantly, the stapler was sitting.

"Mrs. Blankenship, may I borrow your stapler?" I asked.

"Sure, Brian." She said. "Take it back to your desk." Sucka.

I took it back to my desk and sat down, my mouth salivating with anticipation. I then spent upwards of fifteen minutes figuring out how best to accomplish this heroic feat, and I decided to unlock the stapler from it's traditional setting so I could fit both of my thumbs over the holes and still be able to exert enough pressure. You understand,
I was afraid that the staple wouldn't go in far enough. Then my thumbs wouldn't be stuck together, and that just wouldn't do.

It's important to note here, that the thumbs have a pulse of their own, due to the tremendous amount of blood being pumped through them at all times.

So I laid the unfolded stapler on my desk, positioned my thumbs appropriately, and pushed down as hard as I could.

It was at precisely that moment that I began thrashing around in pain, screaming, and bleeding profusely from the thumbs which, on the bright side, I had successfully managed to fuse together.

So they called The Janitor, who used a pair of needlenose pliers to remove the foreign object from my hands. In an incredible coincidence, he used the exact same pliers two years later when he had to remove my little sister Claire's two front teeth from my head.

But that's, another story...