On uniforms and delicate geniuses: Chapter One.
As you know, I've speculated on what a continuation of the strip ought to look like. I'd like to demonstrate how I think things would go by showing you an extended story arc from that world.
Date: 6 September 2015.
Location: Milborough, Ontario, Canada.
Looking back on the whole ugly affair, Liz Caine marveled at how much and how little a newspaper article, blog entry or television story actually said about an issue. There she was, looking at the Suburban Section of the Toronto Gazette reading a tidy little article with the headline Milborough Elementary School To Adopt Uniforms Despite Controversy that had managed to make the whole sordid mess look bland and beige and boring. You would have thought that it was a tidy little spat between one group of parents who politely disagreed with a proposal that really didn't affect them one way or another with a group that wanted the reform to take place. This might actually have happened in any other community wherein the idea of school uniforms was being vetted. The problem is that those communities were not blessed with a Delicate Genius and his family. To think that Dad thought Mike had learned his lesson about making a public fool of himself when he stupidly let himself get talked into protesting a very gradual increase in bus fares. Mike did not learn things because learning things is the humiliation of admitting that someone as great and good and important and beloved as he is could possibly be colossally ignorant.
That being said, she should have expected something stupid like that when the whole thing started. As far as she knew, she was first to know about the proposal to adopt school uniforms for the elementary and middle schools in the local school district because even substitute teachers like her were required to attend big policy meetings that introduced big changes. This pleased her because it was so rare that she was the first to find out about anything that went on around her. She remembered how angry she was when Mom had finally gotten around to telling her that Michael and Deanna were a married couple nine months before she was part of what she thought was their real wedding party. Oh, she could sort of get behind the reason because she knew how much her parents hated Mike's mother in law. She could tolerate the fact that Grandpa Jim and April knew. She could even accept it when Gordon said "We thought that you knew and if you didn't, it was because telling you slipped our minds"; what she couldn't accept was the lack of trust behind it 'slipping' their minds. To be fair, it might actually have been that she'd have been so outraged, she'd have made a royal mess of things. To not be fair, it irritated her to be seen as a shrill idiot who can't shut up.
That being said, it amazed her how calm everyone at home was about the proposal when she'd discussed it over breakfast the following morning. Aside from pointing out that parents sort of owed it to kids to teach them that sooner or later, they had to dress how the Man expected them to, Anthony had made a sort of witty aside about the whole thing being the result of peer pressure. After all, all of the other schools are doing it, so they felt as if they had no choice. This, of course, had nothing to do with the regrettable "nuclear mutant" phase he'd gone through when he was in University. There was no connection between his wincing at how he used to dress when he was twenty and his desire to help children get used to corporate casual, no way, yeah right. Ah. At least he grew out of it. Dad never did.
Speaking of her parents, Mom was behind it all the way because it always bothered her that Liz had to be made to feel bad about what other children were wearing. Well, that and the fact that it used to bug her that some kid called the shots and reminded her of her feeling of absolute powerlessness. At least she was finally honest about that last bit. It helped a lot when Therese freaked out when Francoise had died her hair to match the color of her favourite Space Babe like a lot of her classmates her doing. Terri (as she'd asked to be called now) assumed that Liz was stupid enough to join the pageant scene like Deanna and thought magenta hair was a gateway drug to tiaras and hooker couture.
Speaking of the kids, Francie and Jimmy were even okay with it because they said that they liked the uniforms that were being proposed and didn't much like being treated like second class citizens by showy types who thought that the class-room was their own catwalk. This should have been a warning to Liz about what direction the angry screaming about 'fascism in the hallways' was going to be coming from but for the moment, she felt good about how little noise was being made. It was not to last.
Date: 6 September 2015.
Location: Milborough, Ontario, Canada.
Looking back on the whole ugly affair, Liz Caine marveled at how much and how little a newspaper article, blog entry or television story actually said about an issue. There she was, looking at the Suburban Section of the Toronto Gazette reading a tidy little article with the headline Milborough Elementary School To Adopt Uniforms Despite Controversy that had managed to make the whole sordid mess look bland and beige and boring. You would have thought that it was a tidy little spat between one group of parents who politely disagreed with a proposal that really didn't affect them one way or another with a group that wanted the reform to take place. This might actually have happened in any other community wherein the idea of school uniforms was being vetted. The problem is that those communities were not blessed with a Delicate Genius and his family. To think that Dad thought Mike had learned his lesson about making a public fool of himself when he stupidly let himself get talked into protesting a very gradual increase in bus fares. Mike did not learn things because learning things is the humiliation of admitting that someone as great and good and important and beloved as he is could possibly be colossally ignorant.
That being said, she should have expected something stupid like that when the whole thing started. As far as she knew, she was first to know about the proposal to adopt school uniforms for the elementary and middle schools in the local school district because even substitute teachers like her were required to attend big policy meetings that introduced big changes. This pleased her because it was so rare that she was the first to find out about anything that went on around her. She remembered how angry she was when Mom had finally gotten around to telling her that Michael and Deanna were a married couple nine months before she was part of what she thought was their real wedding party. Oh, she could sort of get behind the reason because she knew how much her parents hated Mike's mother in law. She could tolerate the fact that Grandpa Jim and April knew. She could even accept it when Gordon said "We thought that you knew and if you didn't, it was because telling you slipped our minds"; what she couldn't accept was the lack of trust behind it 'slipping' their minds. To be fair, it might actually have been that she'd have been so outraged, she'd have made a royal mess of things. To not be fair, it irritated her to be seen as a shrill idiot who can't shut up.
That being said, it amazed her how calm everyone at home was about the proposal when she'd discussed it over breakfast the following morning. Aside from pointing out that parents sort of owed it to kids to teach them that sooner or later, they had to dress how the Man expected them to, Anthony had made a sort of witty aside about the whole thing being the result of peer pressure. After all, all of the other schools are doing it, so they felt as if they had no choice. This, of course, had nothing to do with the regrettable "nuclear mutant" phase he'd gone through when he was in University. There was no connection between his wincing at how he used to dress when he was twenty and his desire to help children get used to corporate casual, no way, yeah right. Ah. At least he grew out of it. Dad never did.
Speaking of her parents, Mom was behind it all the way because it always bothered her that Liz had to be made to feel bad about what other children were wearing. Well, that and the fact that it used to bug her that some kid called the shots and reminded her of her feeling of absolute powerlessness. At least she was finally honest about that last bit. It helped a lot when Therese freaked out when Francoise had died her hair to match the color of her favourite Space Babe like a lot of her classmates her doing. Terri (as she'd asked to be called now) assumed that Liz was stupid enough to join the pageant scene like Deanna and thought magenta hair was a gateway drug to tiaras and hooker couture.
Speaking of the kids, Francie and Jimmy were even okay with it because they said that they liked the uniforms that were being proposed and didn't much like being treated like second class citizens by showy types who thought that the class-room was their own catwalk. This should have been a warning to Liz about what direction the angry screaming about 'fascism in the hallways' was going to be coming from but for the moment, she felt good about how little noise was being made. It was not to last.
