May 19, 2006: Break Out The Ol’ Form Over Substance One

Given the past couple weeks’ I’ve endured, I think it’s time to repost the ol’ “Form Over Substance” from the archives:

April 15, 2004: Form Over Substance

Construction of Pleadings. All pleadings shall be construed as to do substantial justice. --Rule 8(f) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure [italics added].

This is not a law school lecture. This is a true story about my seventh-grade, composition teacher, Mrs. Simpson. Her name and those of others have been altered and, based on one graphic depiction, I caution those with weak stomachs or morning sickness to avoid the paragraph where I describe the anxiety Mrs. Simpson caused me in the fall of 1979. (I will provide a warning before aforementioned paragraph.)

A few days before I would begin attending junior high school for the first time, I was late for the orientation. The school bus that was scheduled to gather the children in my area did not travel to my neighborhood. I had to have my mom drive me to the school, where, upon entering the cafeteria, I saw several hundred kids whose bus drivers obviously had no hangovers that morning.

If the Scooby Doo gang would have found my phantom school bus, then perhaps I would have arrived on time. Perhaps I would have felt more comfortable about junior high. Perhaps. But missing the first-half hour of orientation proved ominous and was the first of many anxieties I endured in junior high.

I don't remember the particulars of our introduction to Mrs. Simpson. I know she greeted us with a smile. I also remember her thick, red lipstick. She carried a Styrofoam cup for her coffee. And, by early morning, the white Styrofoam cup she used retained dark, red smears of lipstick across its rim. Nobody recycled then, and it disturbed me that she couldn't replace her Styrofoam cup at least once. It disturbed the other children, too. But nobody had the guts to tell her to replace her nasty Styrofoam cup. It was probably because, like me, they had all spilled the contents of theirs earlier that morning.

Mrs. Simpson required us to keep a journal. Each class, we spent the first ten minutes writing in our journals. I never enjoyed this composition ritual. Perhaps if Al Gore had invented the internet earlier, I would have liked it and I could have uploaded my material online for a couple of strangers to read. Perhaps. But I still hadn't developed my cynicism. That would have to wait until after I graduated from Mrs. Simpson’s class. In an absurd effort to maintain my interest in journal keeping, I named my journal "The Blue Beetle." And, on its cover, I drew a picture of a large ladybug-like creature with black polka dots on its abdomen and thorax, neither of which I could draw to scale or identify in biology class.

Keeping a journal counted toward your composition grade. Mrs. Simpson expected everyone to write an entry on each school day of the week. If you were absent a couple days, tough doo-doo, pal. You should have had your buddy bring the journal to your sickbed. Mrs. Simpson conducted random journal inspections. And if your journal lacked an entry, then, in the battle cry of Mrs. Simpson, "DOCK 'EM! FIFTY POINTS OFF!"

Journal checks occurred at the beginning of class. After the period bell rang, Mrs. Simpson closed her classroom door and proudly announced "JOURNAL CHECK!" She would then instruct us on how to proceed. Sometimes I'd pass the journal to the person in the seat in front of me. That usually meant Abigail checked my journal.

As my luck would also have it, Abigail was the class valedictorian. Rumor was she never made less than an A in anything. It was no rumor. I saw Abigail’s grades on Mrs. Simpson’s tests. Abigail was friendly to me, however, and she never docked me on my journal entries. If Abigail had done nothing else for me, I would still have the utmost respect for her. Had Mrs. Simpson’s class been like Mark Burnett's "Survivor," I would have formed an alliance with Abigail in my struggle against Mrs. Simpson and her evil journal-point dockers.

Mrs. Simpson also enjoyed giving her classes "pop quizzes." Abigail never had trouble with them. Most of us, however, rued the days she gave these tests. We had class in the morning and could not receive any notice of these anxiety producers. I resented the afternoon classes because they would discover the horror and have ample time during lunch to prepare for them. I suppose I could have studied and prevented my anxiety. But I was twelve years' old and I didn't need logic. I needed my Slim Jims® and my remote control to watch "The Flintstones" and "The Little Rascals" on WXIX out of Cincinnati.

One day, during a journal check, somebody asked Mrs. Simpson how many words should each journal entry have. This fool must have devoted attention to her journal because nobody, not even someone who watched "The Flintstones" instead of studying, would ever dare raise a grading standard with Mrs. Simpson. Mrs. Simpson was the worst martinet. And nobody needed to suggest another unreasonable grading standard to her if she hadn't considered it.

"Hmm....," Mrs. Simpson thought aloud like the Owl in the commerical for the Tootise Pops®, "How many words should a journal entry contain? . . . What do you guys think?" she asked aloud, with no intention of following our suggestions. "How about fifty words!" she pronounced. Of course, her edict drew the obvious response:

"What if somebody has forty-nine words in their journal?"

Which then drew the obvious response from Mrs. Simpson:

"DOCK 'EM!! FIFTY POINTS OFF!"

On this particular "journal check," we passed our journals across the room. One of my entries lacked the requisite fifty words. I looked across the room at Mr. Markowitz, who, only months later, would have his Bar Mitzvah the same day as I did. On this day, however, Mr. Markowitz did not remember that we were both MOT ("members of the tribe"), and, despite my pleas from across the room, and wild flailing of my arms, he followed the fifty-word rule as written. And I got docked fifty points.

WARNING: THE FOLLOWING PARAGRAPH CONTAINS A GRAPHIC DESCRIPTION OF GASTROINTESTINAL DIFFICULTIES. WE APOLOGIZE FOR THE INCONVENIENCE BUT LIFE IS LIKE THAT AND YOU HAVE GOT TO LEARN TO DEAL WITH IT. YOU'RE WELCOME.

Mrs. Simpson’s pop quizzes and journal checks had now wreaked havoc on my stomach. Every morning before leaving for school, I would vomit the eight ounces of milk I drank. I drank only eight ounces of milk because that's all my stomach could tolerate. I wasn't able to eat the toast or breakfast bars anymore. Don't even make me think about the eggs. I couldn't handle thinking about eating until after Mrs. Simpson's class ended each morning. That class made me one neurotic seventh-grader.

I eventually learned I had the power to prevent my anxiety simply by modifying my behavior. In this case, that meant I would count the words for each journal entry. After I reached fifty-five (the margin of error was +/- 5 words, I figured), I stopped. Although Mrs. Simpson intended our journal writing to develop our composition skills, her implementation of the fifty-word rule instead increased my mathematical abilities, reasoning and sarcasm about rules--especially the exaltation of form over substance.

My journal entries turned into avant-garde explorations of how to consider the same theme without repeating myself. The theme I used was now "I have to write fifty words in this entry so Mr. Markowitz will be happy and Mrs. Simpson won't dock me and I won't puke near my dad's shoes anymore."

And a typical entry might read:

Today I have to write in my journal again. I must make sure I have at least fifty words in this entry. Writing fifty words takes time because I can't type fifty words. I learned to count to fifty when I was little. Fifty follows forty-nine. I hope having fifty words in this entry makes you happy.

This entry would pass muster because even if you count forty-nine as one word, and not two, you have at least fifty-five words in it. And this is how I had to write the remainder of my seventh-grade year in Mrs. Simpson's class. My barfing stopped and I became an “A” student in her class. And today, when I see people blindly follow rules without considering the reason(s) for the rules, I get very angry and I tell them the story about Mrs. Simpson.

I never did beat Abigail's scores on any tests. Damn.