Each January, I start the new year with my ninth graders with a weird activity. I know we will be working on expository writing, and I’m going to be encouraging them to write about an enthusiasm – something they love. But first, I want to build their confidence. I want to show them that they can write about almost any topic – even if it’s really, really dull.
So we do an activity. I tell them they are going to assign me a really boring topic to write about. It has to be a topic that is of general knowledge, and it needs to be class appropriate. They nominate 10 boring topics, then vote as a class on one. I then get ten minutes to write about the topic live in front of the class, projecting my computer screen. I tell them the idea is not to be interesting or entertaining, but to just keep on coming up with ideas, no matter what, until time is up. I talk them through the process as I write.
After time is called we discuss the writer’s moves I made to keep the writing flowing. I then turn the tables and give them 10 minutes to write about one of the remaining 9 topics. They usually write… well! They discover they have it in them to write about a really dull topic, and they also discover that most topics are actually kind of interesting once you start writing about them.
So, for what it’s worth, here is what I wrote today for my classes, including their lists of nominated topics. In 50 minutes, 10 minutes for each of my 5 ninth grade classes, I wrote 1,872 words.
World’s Most Boring Topics 2024: Jan. 3 – 1,872 total words
Per. 1
TRAFFIC CONES 316
Traffic cones have a variety of uses: to train drivers, to cordon off construction areas, and to cordon off areas in various sports. Here’s the weird thing about traffic cones – we obey them. Traffic cones have no real power over us. They are white and orange and they are less than three feet high. Yet we obey them. We drive around them, we avoid areas that have been sealed off by them, and we run around them to stay in bounds in a game. It’s really weird when you think about it. They can’t punish us. They can’t reward us. They aren’t even alive or alert or conscious of what we’re doing. But we obey them anyway, just be their mere presence. Who trained us to obey traffic cones? Where did it start? Was it in preschool gym classes or early elementary school when we were still walking in lines behind the teacher? Traffic cones, I’m realizing are little, inanimate authority figures keeping us in line. Even if we accidentally run over them, they just unfold back into place. They’re resilient. Sort of like authority figures themselves. It’s hard to go against the system, just like it’s hard to flatten a traffic cone permanently. They always seem to get the last word.
What would it take to completely flatten a traffic cone or destroy it? I’m not sure. I’ve never tried. But I suspect if you ran over it enough, you could probably make it into an orange and white pancake permanently.
We think of ourselves as living in a free country, but what does it say about us, that most of us, when confronted with a little plastic (what are they made of, anyway?) orange and white cone, obey its unstated directives: Go here, not here; go around me; stay inside or outside the lines.
Is it a daring act to disobey a traffic cone?
Per. 2
KIDNEY 375
The kidney is something we take for granted, until it doesn’t work. Then, the kidney becomes a matter of life and death.
What is the kidney? So far as I can tell – I’m not a kidney expert – the kidney is an organ that sorts out liquid waste matter so it can be expelled from your body when you… well, call it what it what you will: pee, urinate, take a leak.
We really do take it for granted. But I have an acquaintance who is in the midst of kidney failure. He’s going to have to go dialysis, which is a process of flushing the waste fluids out of your body using a machine. He needs a kidney transplant, but they are hard to come by. You have to find a person who is an exact match, or your body, as with any transplant, may reject the new, transplanted kidney.
This is shortage of kidney donors is a big deal. On the TV athletic competition American Ninja Warrior, one of the competitors has been a donor, and wears a “Share your spare” T-shirt every time he runs a course.
I have had the thought that it’s a lot to ask a healthy person to donate a kidney – sure we all have 2, but what happens if our one kidney goes wrong sometime after we’ve donated one? Most people in need of a transplant have to wait for a healthy person to die in a car crash or other accident before they have a chance of getting a kidney – and even then, the donor has to be a good match and also an organ donor (not everybody is). So the odds are low.
Looking at the kidney from another angle, I supposed that we all need emotional kidneys of some sort. If we let the “waste products” of our emotions go unchecked, they build up like toxic waste in our minds. We need to find a way to rid ourselves of unwanted emotions, pent up memories, and toxic stress. I hate to say it, but writing is sort of the kidney of the soul. If you can write things out, you can sort of cleanse yourself of the stress and negative thoughts that are poisoning you.
Per. 3
EAR WAX 459
Ear wax is just… gross. It’s unattractive. It’s slimy and sticky to the touch. More importantly, I don’t quite get what function it serves.
I mean, why did we evolve to produce ear wax? What use it? If it’s designed to keep infections out of your ear, I’m afraid it doesn’t work real well. I have had waxy ears and ear infections at the exact same time. So apparently, my ear wax was falling down on the job.
Not only does ear wax not serve any useful purpose, it can actually be harmful. I have not had this happen myself, but I have had relatives who had to get their ear wax removed by a doctor because it was clogging up their ears and interfering with their ability to hear. In the case of some of my older – much older – relatives, they were already heard of hearing to begin with, so ear wax just made it even worse.
There are different ways to get rid of earwax. The one I’ve seen the most, is to take a little balloon shaped syringe, and squirt warm water in your ear to loosen it up and make it come out. I sometimes wonder, though, if this method might just make the wax retreat further into your ear and make the problem worse. Most of the time, it apparently breaks up the wax and makes it come out into the sink. This cure has the unfortunate effect of putting water in your ear, so you feel like you have swimmer’s ear, which isn’t any more pleasant than the original problem.
The other way to get rid of ear wax is use a Cue-tip or cotton swab. The problem with this, again, is that you are likely to just push the wax in further instead of drawing it out. If you got too far in, you can damage your ear, so that’s bad too.
Of course, if you’re like Shrek in the Dreamworks movies, you can always grow your earwax out until you can light it like a candle. It is, after all, wax.
I don’t usually think about earwax this much, but I’ve just noticed something as I typed this: apparently, it can be either two word OR a compound word. Usually, Microsoft Word will correct you and tell you it MUST be a compound word, but this case, apparently either version will do.
Someone just tried to play Star Wars music to add inspiring music to write by, but Star Wars music doesn’t match ear wax. If I had to chose a Star Wars theme to express the essence of earwax, it might be Jabba the Hutt’s theme, a tuba-based musical theme that suggests something lumpy, gross, and icky. Just like earwax.
Per. 5
DISHWASHER RACKS 365
I don’t own a dishwasher currently and haven’t since I became an adult. I am the dishwasher, one of them anyway, in my house. However, I grew up with a dishwasher, until it broke down sometime in high school and we couldn’t at the time afford to get it fixed. So I can tell you that even if a dishwasher isn’t working the racks inside can be used for storing pots, pans, and cookie sheets among other things.
I do recall having to load the dishwasher racks when I was between ten years old and whenever the dishwasher broke. I’ve always found it an obnoxious and difficult task. For instance, we had certain bowls that wouldn’t quite fit well into any of the racks our dishwasher had available. If you put them in some spaces, they would fall flat. In other spaces, they would clump together to the water couldn’t get in them.
That was a problem with silverware as well – if you put it in the specialized silverware rack the wrong way, the water wouldn’t hit it right and there would be food remains stuck to the silverware – really stuck, like Superglue or Gorilla Glue.
When the dishes did fit – like dinner plates, there was kind of a feeling of accomplishment when you got them lined up just right and you knew they would all get clean.
While the dishes were being washed, I wondered exactly what it was like in there for the dishes. Yes, I was an odd child. I thought dishes could experience things like being washed – and this was even before Pixar taught us that toys, bugs, robots, and even emotions had feelings.
After the washing was over, getting things off the rack could be a challenge because they were still hot. But unloading them and then putting them away gave you a feeling, again, of accomplishment.
Though I don’t use dishwashers or dishwasher racks now as an adult, using them as a kid did prepare me to use the dishrack I put my dishes on to dry after I wash them today. Sometimes they still don’t fit. Bowls tip over. Plates get too close together and don’t dry right.
Per. 7
Cup holders 3
Sizes of paper 4
Weather tech 10
Zippers 3
WEATHER TECH 357
I have not experienced Weather Tech, a product for cars, myself. But, boy have I seen ads for their products. So far as I can tell, Weather Tech is a product designed to protect your car from various things that would make it messy. I believe there are floor mats, mats for the back bed of your pickup truck, and even drink holders. I’m assuming the purpose of Weather Tech is to protect your car from wear and tear.
I’m not sure if I would buy it. It depends on the price. I don’t feel a particular need for Weather Tech because I don’t, for instance own a pickup truck and we don’t go, as they say, “Muddin’” in the swamp. We’re fairly neat with our car already.
I supposed if I worked in construction or cleaning or some other messy profession, I might feel a need for weather tech. Not knowing that much about it, I can only assume that after a bit of time passes, you would take the Weather Tech elements out of your car and hose them down if they had gotten dirty. I’m also not sure how long Weather Tech products last. Months? Years? What makes them wear out? Are they indestructible?
What happens if they do wear out? Are they made of plastic? Are they recyclable? Or do they just clog up landfills and contribute to pollution?
They Christmas commercials for this product sort of baffle me. Weather Tech looks completely utilitarian, very practical. The people in the commercials look all thrilled to be receiving weather tech as a gift. But what do you do with weather other than go about your usual business and then hose it down occasionally? It’s not like getting, say, an actual car with a big bow on it – although that’s a commercial trop that seems kind of dumb to me. I have never known anyone who gave or received a car for Christmas.
On the whole, it would take a lot of convincing to get me to buy Weather Tech products. Are car isn’t that expensive to begin with and we are not that messy.