Great First Lines

My mother used to tell me that "simple things amuse simple people," so I am today being completely simple and loving it. Recently, I've enjoyed some great "first line" moments that have sent me into gales of laughter (which may be, come to think of it, the first stages of senior dementia: hmmm), and I'm going to share them just because I can.

One of my best students speaks English as a second or third language. He's bright, intelligent, and well-educated, but he's still in the learning curve when it comes to applying the difference between denotation and connotation. Hence, the opening line to his position paper on the topic of same sex marriage: Homosexuals are nibbling at the anus of heterosexuals. Yes, we were able to clarify with other expressions the position he supports, but it was not nearly the attention-grabber as his original opening line.

Best manure for pork stalk is the subject line of an email I almost opened with a "say, what?" curiosity before I realized this is yet another way to avoid the spam detectors! A man's pork stalk evidently benefits from using the little blue pill as manure, but the total picture of applying that description to the event evokes that somewhat sick laugh saved for these occasions.

One of my favorite students always uses an allusion to the beginning of time in his essays, couched in several different iterations, but always present. This last week, I teased him a bit and one of the more stolid students, who is writing about dealing with modern-day piracy on the high seas, amended his opening statement to reflect that Since the beginning of time, there have always been pirates. We all got a kick out of his display of humor as he's usually so incredibly quiet that you don't know he's in the room.

Following up on that memorable Mello moment (an insider's joke), another student went home and sent me an email: Before the very dawn of creation, in the darkness of a thousand nights, as the wind rustled over the face of the deep, a sound could be heard... When I pushed the button she had added to the message, a YouTube rendering of the Pirate's Song began playing!

When I stopped by Sam's Club this morning to pick up a few items, the nice man greeted me at the door and asked, "Is there anything I can do for you?" Yeah, the list unfurled inside my head, along with the totally inappropriate toss-offs, but for once in my life, I merely smiled and responded, "No, thank you."

My final great first line comes from a call to my cell last night: Hello? Are you the person I was just talking to?