what were they teaching us?

i don't know why, but i remembered something random about my childhood today. i love a good flashback.

i'm sure you all know that the state insect of texas is the monarch butterfly.

i noticed a few months ago that i automatically color butterflies orange and black because of how much i learned about them when i was young. it's like there's no other butterfly. why should there be? (**update...i just realized how funny it is that i ever have a reason to be coloring butterflies. just to clarify, i don't sit around and color in coloring books anymore. that was cute when i was 17, but not anymore...it's my job...my silly job...***)

anyway, here's the flashback.

in elementary school, every year, there was this disturbing butterfly ritual.

they'd buy a special scientific monarch butterfly box. it was filled with the cocoons. we'd set this box in a corner, under the intense heat of a few lamps. and after a specified period of time, we'd take the box out to the playground. the goal was for them to break out of the cocoons and fly away.

every year we tried this.

every year we failed.

i never saw one butterfly emerge from one of those boxes. every year we'd hope, and hope. but it was never to be.

it's kind of like sin.

no, i'm just kidding. i am so not the kind of person that turns flashbacks into sermon illustrations.

the next thought in this series of flashbacks, my train of thought if you will, is that in elementary school music class...if you didn't know how to whistle...you were supposed to make a butterfly with your hands and do that instead. napoleon dynamite style. i just pretended to whistle.

the train ends with this thought...i used to wear flannel. gross. i'm not the most stylish person ever, but i regret that flannel is part of my history.