Confession.

I'm a plagarist.  And I won an award for it.  

I just remembered this the other day.  We (it's none of your business who "we" is.  My private life is my own.) were at the library, checking out some literature which chronicled the lives of great historical figures such as Bob the Builder and Thomas the Tank Engine, when my eye fell upon a Brian Jaques book.  I used to love Brian Jaques books.  For those of you that don't know, he wrote a few literary gems called "Redwall", "Mossflower" and my personal favorite, "Martin the Warrior".   I read these books non-stop when I was a tot.  In bed at night, on the school bus, in class, all the time.  I would carry around these huge, hard-cover novels with pictures of talking animals in castles getting into battles with other animals on them and wonder why I wasn't friends with the cool girls with the scrunchies and the layered slouch socks and the long t-shirts and belts.  I still wonder.....

When I saw the book my first emotion was happiness and nostalgia because I remember just loving the shit out of those things.  But then there was something else.  What was it?  Is that the FEAR??  How could this be?  Why was I getting fear and loathing in the middle of the children's section of the West Tisbury Free Library??

Back when subject were "English", "Math" and "Gym" my favorite subject in elementary school was obviously English.    Gym probably would have been my favorite if it hadn't been for the girls in the slouch socks making fun of how I ran.  I would find out later in life that I have a gait which could be likened to a popular snack food, the Chicken Nugget. (I was informed of this in high school by a chap named Christoph Boominghaus.  he would yell, "Chickeen Nugggeetttt!" in his German accent, and then throw me into the bushes outside of the cloisters of my prestigious boarding school.  I think you guys are getting a pretty clear picture of my formative years, no?)  

I used to enter all of the writing contest in elementary school.  One such contest was a creative writing contest.  I think it was fourth or fifth grade.  I wrote a story, submitted it to the contest and went back to my life of dorkery without thinking too much more about it.  The day they announced the winners of the contests there was an all-school assembly.  Grades 1 - 5 gathered in the gym, and Dr. Vogel, the principal, stood  up to give a speech and announce the prizes.  Dr. Vogel totally ruled.  He was about 65 when I was 10, and he was tall and bald and wore a bow-tie.  He used to play the guitar in class and use really funny voices.  I think in hindsight he was a #1, class-A candidate for a pedophile charge, but maybe I'm just jaded and think that all tall, bald dudes who play the guitar for children and talk in weird voices want to get into little-kid chinos. (Belle, this in not inclusive of any of your family members.) 

When he announced the prizes he went from 3rd prize up to 1st prize.  I think I kind of let it go after 2nd prize because there's no way in HELL I was going to win.  I didn't win stuff.  (I still don't, unless someone, who will remain fabulously and glamorously unnamed, stuffs the ballot box thus securing me a mouse pad with fruit on it and a cash prize.  Come on, YOU ALL KNEW I DIDN'T DESERVE THAT SHIT!!)  Then he read the title of my story.  And my name.  I had won.  Part of the prize was that Dr. Vogel stood up in front of the whole THE WHOLE fucking school and read the story.  Guess what my story was about.   Oh, did you say "Talking animals living in castles getting into battles with other animals"?  Yahtzee.  Before he read my story he went on and on about how the story had won because of it's originality.  I don't even think I realized I had stolen from the Jaques books until Big Vog started reading my story out loud.  It was exactly like these stories sounded in my head.  Dr. Vogel went up there and gave an amazing performance of the words B. Jaques had written.  Homeboy would have been proud.  But not I, not fucking I.  I was horrified.  Now everybody was going to know that I was a total fraud.  Someone in this gymnasium is going to stand up, and point at me and call me a fucking liar.  I looked around at the crowd.  People were pointing at me alright.  The scrunchie girls were whispering at each other and pointing at my fucked up haircut and palazzo pants.  Holy shit.  Nobody else had read these books.  My obscure nerdery had somehow saved me.  Nobody was going to find out.  I'm just like Malcolm  in the Middle but about 1/8 as smart!!!!  

When I got home and announced my victory my mom was SO proud.  My brother totally knew.  He'd actually given me the books in the first place.  I think he actually called me out but there was too much of a kerfuffle surrounding my prize and his protests were drowned out.  I had gotten away with it.  And it was at then that I stopped thinking about that day completely, until 17 years later when I would walk into a library and have a fucking heart attack upon seeing a book about some talking animals living in a castle getting into battles with other animals.

I wonder how many things in my past I'm suppressing.  Maybe I'm not even writing this blog.  

Eh, I'd have to the biggest douche alive to copy this garbage.  

Okay, That joke I posted a couple of weeks ago?  I stole it.  Oops.  I think I was supposed to suppress that.