No is no
No is always no
If they say no, it means a thousand times no
No plus no equals no
All nos lead to no no no
Finger pointing, eyebrows low
Mouth in the shape of the letter O
Pardon me, no!
Excuse me, no!
May I stay?
Can I go?
No, no, no
Do this, no! - They Might Be Giants
Abigail Thinks 100%
In apartment 403 C there lived a family: the first, Dr. Annie Angelar, an orthopedic surgeon, Dr. Betty Binary the second, a software engineer and their daughter Abigail. Though she thought her name was love because that is what her mom Betty called her.
Now let me introduce you to this family before I tell the story of Abigail. Dr. Annie Angelar, the orthopedic surgeon, loved Abigail very much. She worked 83.3% of the day, slept 12% of the day and there is much speculation what she did with the rest of her time. We know it's absolute that she never worried about Abigail. Now that was not true for Abigail’s other mother Dr. Betty Binary. In fact, Betty worried for 86,400 seconds everyday, in words — every second!
When Abigail was born, Betty worried because Abigail refused to say anything that made sense; when Abigail was 1 she worried because Abigail refused to walk; when Abigail was 2, Betty worried because Abigail refused to be terrible; when Abigail was 3 she worried because Abigail refused to take naps and when Abigail was 4, she worried because Abigail refused to eat brussel sprouts AND broccoli. Can you believe that?
Abigail, age 8, is a student of Boring Elementary School on 58th Avenue. And these days Betty’s worries are greater than they were before! You see for some reason unbeknownst to Betty, Abigail has not spoken a single word since her first day of Kindergarten. And when you add on this October when Betty met with Abigail’s teacher, Miss Singleton... well Betty’s worries got even greater than before because Abigail was refusing to do school work and getting Fs in every class!
Miss Singleton explained, “In reading, she just stares at the page, in math, she gets into other kids desks, in writing, she gets up every 5 minutes to sharpen her pencil , at lunch, she stuffed her peas in her milk carton, in band, not a sound comes out of her trumpet and in art, she won’t draw — her paper is blank!”
Listening to Miss Singleton made her think about the proven fact that Abigail never cleans her room.
Now when you add on the public announcement in this spring of 2020 that all kids will must be school at home! Betty’s worries grew exponentially! Betty pleaded with her partner, Annie, to stay home with their daughter.
To which Annie replied, “That is not logical, you work at home. I don’t!”
So on March 17 , the first day of “homeschool” what Betty didn’t know; her worry problems would be solved.
That morning Betty watched Abigail eat the edges off her poptart and of course Betty worried — that’s a given. She loved Abigail 100% but on any given day the odds were Abigail would push her, to her limits. And the most frustrating thing was she did it all without talking. Like when she tried to negotiate Abigail's allowance, she wanted to be paid exactly $3.142 per hour. Betty said, “let’s make it easy; make it an even $3.20.” Abigail slid a piece of paper across the table that said, “No.”
On the other hand Abigail was not worried nor frustrated in the least.
There is a lot Betty did not know about her daughter. Like Abigail did not eat the edges off pop-tarts, she ate the perimeter off! And when she ate the area of the pop-tart - 12 sugary square inches, she could at the very same time estimate how many cookies were left in the cookie jar! Her mind just worked that way, it always did.
When Abigail was born she came out at exactly 9 months because she found 9 to be the most amazing number! Why? Because the sum of the number added to 9 is always equal to the sum of the digits of the result. Take any four digit number and try it! 9 + 17 = 26, so 1 + 7 = 8 and 2 + 6 = 8. I know, 9 is amazing! So when Abigail was born she did not know how to express this... when she tried she just drooled on Betty. I would like to point out that on this day Abigail was dressed to the 9s, in her birthday suit.
When Abigail was a baby, she could tell time. She would lay in her crib waiting until 2 am then cry at 120 decibels. You could say, she reached her terrible 2’s early! But Betty was too tired at TWO in the morning to notice that!
When Abigail was 1 Betty always tried to get Abigail to walk towards her. Little Abigail was not just sitting on her ass though. She was using her IF, THEN logic. IF I walk over there, THEN I will get a hug and well Betty eats onions and tuna fish that equal bad breath!
When Abigail was 3 she had a difficult time because instead of counting sheep, she tried to count to infinity. She loves a challenge.
When Abigail was 4 she refused to eat brussel sprouts or broccoli because they smell like farts! And she read that you have to eat something 10 or more times to like something. One time eating a fart is too much!
As far as school goes, Abigail loved it! She loved a challenge.
In reading, she could read the words but she liked a challenge soooo, she used the alphanumeric code. I bet you’ve tried it. A=1, B=2, C=3 and so on. To Abigail every letter represented a number, every space represented a plus sign and every period meant multiply! Now Abigail especially liked ( )’s but in second grade books those are rare.
In math, she noticed the inequalities in each kid's desks. So, she would try to make things equivalent. You know some kids get 24 crayons and others get double - 48 and some 64 all of which are divisible by 8. Which is great but what weighed heavy on her brain was that some kids had none.
In writing, she practiced fraction subtraction. At the start of class she would start with 1 pencil. Then she should sharpen it until lets say ⅓ was gone, then she would have ⅔ left. This can go on and on.
The hardest part of subtraction is that her arm would get so tired!
At lunch Abigail would have volumes of fun with her milk carton. She would stuff it with different units of measurements: sometimes peas and sometimes corn. No matter what, this made the lunchman have a cranky face!
In band, she played the trumpet. Betty used to play the trumpet when she was young. Though for when Abigail practiced at home, she was told, “Keep it down.” So Abigail played her own composition, the sound of a butterfly. It was composed of 1/111116 th notes that she played pizzicato, which she played Pianississississississimo.
In art, she knew a picture is worth 1,000 words but she wanted more. She would try to figure out how to get a ton of color on her paper without getting into trouble. She is still working on a solution but it is hard to concentrate, art is right before recess.
And her room, well — order! She has everything right where she can see it — on the floor.
By the dresser are the training wheels, she took them off her bike herself. Sometimes, she puts strings on the wheels to make a pulley or a Barbie elevator.
By her desk are piles of little rubber bands. Every time Betty braids her hair, Abigail takes them out and adds them to her color coded piles. She stretches them into triangles, parallelograms, and so many shapes. Sometimes, she puts them on her fingers to make patterns. Sometimes, she snaps them to see how far and fast they can travel.
Her favorite toy, her Barbie. Sometimes Barbie does the splits putting legs at 180%, sometimes she kicks a karate block making her legs form a right angle, and when she walks her legs go in all kinds of acute angles.
It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out, Abigail loves math. She loves her moms Annie and Betty, they are her constants in love A & B. That is why sometimes she hides Betty’s car keys, so she doesn’t have to go to school. Those lost keys are a hidden variable to Betty. But after March 17, the first day of homeschool creating problems for Betty would no longer be needed.
So I am sure you are thinking why in the world did Abigail stop talking at the age of 5. Well, it was an exciting day - the first day of kindergarten and Abigail was very excited. Now that you know how Abigail’s mind works, imagine all of her thoughts coming out of her mouth and 999 miles per hour. She was soooo excited. On the car ride to school, Betty wanted it to be the most perfect day but she was running late!
She tried to calculate an alternate route and said, “Shut up Abigail, so I can think!”
She didn’t mean to yell,
she was just worried they would be late,
late on the very first day of kindergarten.
Abigail heard the words, “Shut up Abigail, so I can think!”
Abigail calculated what it would be like, to live with a mother that can’t think.
She loved her mother 100% and knew to not think for yourself was the worst thing!
Talking = Mom doesn’t think or….IF I talk, THEN there's a HUGE problem...Mom doesn’t THINK
Solution: Abigail was quiet 83.3% of the time (one must account for pencil sharpeners, farts, and the sound of a butterfly played on a trumpet)…. until March 17th.
On March 17, the very first day of homeschool…
Betty was very, very worried but also very, very frustrated because Abigail refused to speak.
But she waited, took a deep breath - onion breath and counted to 3….
Then calmed she asked Abigail, “What’s a matter? Cat got your tongue?”
Abigail's pink lips form a crescent….
she held up her hand with her pointer finger up...signifying wait a minute
She put her pencil to her paper and wrote this down:
01010100 01101000 01100001 01110100 00100000 01110111 01101111 01110101 01101100 01100100 00100000 01100010 01100101 00100000 01110000 01101111 01110011 01110011 01101001 01100010 01101100 01100101 00101100 00100000 01101001 01100110 00100000 01111001 01101111 01110101 00100000 01100111 01101111 01110100 00100000 01101101 01100101 00100000 01100001 00100000 01101011 01101001 01110100 01110100 01100101 01101110 00100001 00100000 00100000 01010000 01101100 01100101 01100001 01110011 01100101 00100000 01001101 01101111 01101101
(What’s a matter can’t you read? That note clearly says:
That would be possible, if you got me a kitten! Please Mom)
Dr. Betty Binary smiled and said yes on one condition,
“Can you make the sound of a kitten?”
Abigail’s lips parted “meow.”
Betty replied, “Meow we're talkin’!”
Then Annie walked in the door and asked how was your day?
Abigail yelled at precisely 120 decibels, “We’re getting a KITTEN- They have 9 lives!!!!!”
THE END
2 days later Abacus John Pythagorean, a multi-colored kitten moved into 403 C and his litter box smells = the disgusting smell of brussel sprouts and broccoli but breath does NOT smell like onions. He sleeps in a crescent shape on Abigail’s pillow like a crown. A PRRRRfect ending
©2020 by TC McCracken. All rights reserved.