Let's See The Oscars Top This!!!

Didn't get to see much of this year's Oscar telecast or the red carpet nonsense, but it didn't really matter because here in Rochester, NY, the awards season has also hit fever pitch (Why not? Kodak, which is headquartered here, is rapidly going down the tubes, so there isn't much else to get excited about.), culminating with the pinnacle of awards events. I'm referring, of course, to -- you guessed it -- Miss Biddle's Annual Second Grade Elementary School Awards...

Each year seems to bring some new surprises, and 2012 was no exception. This year's race was probably the closest ever in the "Outstanding Achievement in seeing who can go the longest without crying for no apparent reason" category. This year, little Tiffany Gottlieb just eked out the win over Tracy O'Malley by a teardrop.... Her record was a seemingly superhuman two hours, 42 and a half minutes... Unfortunately, during her acceptance speech she completely broke down, thus forcing the judges to nearly pull the award when they began to  reconsider whether or not she actually deserved it in the first place.

In another highly-visible competition this year, Little Billy Ives ran away with the honors in the "No pulling his female classmates' pigtails" category. Of course, we'll see how well he's able to maintain his sense of self-control and will power in a few years when he gets to seventh grade and is up for the "No pulling his female classmates bra straps" award.

On a sad note, everyone paused for a moment of silence to remember Whitney... No, not Whitney Houston; Whitney, the class's pet goldfish who accidentally got flushed when they were changing the water in the aquarium a couple of weeks ago.

One final thing: the awards weren't as well attended this year by outsiders as in the past. With the new security measures that have been put in place at the school, a lot of grandparents were turned away at the door when their artificial hips set off the metal detectors.

At any rate, a good time was had by all, and when it was over everyone, winners and losers alike, let down their hair and set down their backpacks at The Principal's Ball at Chuck E. Cheese... And in the words of Miss Biddle (as she coincidentally also tells those who don't make it into the third grade): "Thanks for coming! See you next year!"

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"Every weirdo in the world is on my wavelength."

-- Thomas Pynchon