I love writing, but I don't know what to write about. "Free choice" the teacher said. "Write about whatever you want." Oh boy! Now what? So I thought, and thought, and thought, and thought, and thought, and thought, and thought. Ideas:

Band camp
A hectic life
Homework
Friendship
Family
Love
Hate
War
Peace
School
The best of times
The worst of times
A time to be born
A time to die
A time to reap
A time to sow
Turn
Turn
Turn

Wow! I've gone from no ideas to too many ideas. What should I do now? Start eliminating. Band camp - who wants to hear about five days of excruciating pain and humiliation in 95-degree weather, in the rain, in a thunderstorm, carrying a 35-pound lightning rod on my shoulder? A hectic life - all of my papers are about that. Homework - who wants to talk about that? Friendship - too personal. Family - ditto. Love, hate, war, peace - too general. School - I spend too much time with it as it is. The best of times, the worst of times - no, Dickens beat me to it. A time to be born, a time to die, a time to reap, a time to sow - no, The Byrds beat me to it, and actually King Solomon beat them to it. Well, I'm back to square one.

Excuses. Exxxxcuses. Why don't I have a paper like she wants? My dog ate it. No, my dog died last summer. My nephew ate it. Possible, but she wouldn't like it. I made it into a paper airplane and it was hijacked to Cuba. It's original, but it won't work - there aren't any Cubans around here. I was kidnapped by aliens and they stole it to learn more about life on the "blue planet". The only person who would believe that is the same one who saw Elvis at K-mart last night, so that excuse won't work either.

What can I do? What can I tell her? What about the truth? Out of the question! Who'd believe it anyway? Oh, come on, it won't kill you. It just might! Honesty is the best policy. Yeah, but lies keep you out of trouble more often. Maybe so, but you'll get in more trouble in the long run. Well, ... And she's more apt to believe the truth anyway. Oh, OK. You've convinced me. I'll tell her the truth.

OK, so here it goes. The truth. I spent too much time contemplating and complaining about the paper. I rejected all of the ideas I came up with and wasted all of my time trying to come up with excuses why I didn't have it. I wasted an entire hour griping, complaining, and just plain wasting time. So I'm sorry, teacher. I don't have a paper for you.

Written by Ricky Duval, 11th grade -- 1993-4.
Computer version entered Sunday, May 11, 2003.