Last week, I wrote about the moment, at the tender age of 4, when I took up the act of writing for the first time.
This week, I’m remembering the time I got my first negative review.
Sometime in 1998, I discovered the movie Clue (1985). At the time, there could not have been a more exciting movie for me. The madcap murder mystery with a stacked cast of funny oddballs including: Tim Curry, Christopher Lloyd, and Madeline Kahn. But the most impressive thing to me, was the VHS included three alternate endings.
Being eight years old, this was likely the greatest movie ever made, or could ever be made.
I was in 3rd grade, and there was a homework assignment to write a 2-page short story. Or, to be more accurate, we needed to fill the front and back of a single sheet of loose-leaf paper with a ‘story’.
The story could be about anything, so I decided to write a comedy spoof of Clue for my story. A spoof version of Clue was like saying I was in search of a spicy jalapeño or a cold ice cube, but I digress.
My story was set in a stately mansion, a perfect Clue setting. And would be narrated by the Butler, an ideal Clue character. Detailing a series of murders, a perfect Clue mystery.
Now remember, I was eight years old, and this piece of writing was less a story. You know, something which usually has a plot, a narrative structure, and... paragraphs. It was more a list of all the murders I could think of, one by one.
But here was My Twist!
To me, humor was the sole important factor in this assignment. In Clue, both the movie and the board game use a different murder weapon for each murder. There’s six weapons: the candlestick, the wrench, the dagger, the rope, the lead pipe, and the revolver. I thought it would be funny if everyone in my version is killed by the same murder weapon...
...A CAR.
In a traditional Clue game someone would say: Mrs. Scarlet was found in the Kitchen with the revolver. Mine followed a similar structure but sounded like this:
‘Groundskeeper Smith was on the tennis court and was run over by a car.’
But each scenario grew more ridiculous.
Lady So-And-So was in the swimming pool, and a car drove over her.
Mr. Whats-His-Name was in the library, covered in tire marks.
Dr. Who-ever was in the bathtub and car backed over him.
Who was the killer? I have no idea, I didn’t even think of that. There was no ending to this story. Honestly, there wasn’t even a beginning. Yet I completed this story in record time. My amusement was paramount: Wouldn’t it be funny if a murderer snuck up on someone... in a car!? And what if that car was in somebody’s... bathroom!? HaHaHa.
The day the assignment was due, our regular English teacher was out sick. But instead of a substitute, the Classroom Aid filled in.
This Classroom Aid was an older woman, which, if my memory serves, means she was anywhere from 60 to 600 years old. She was very strict. She was the kind of schoolroom administrator who got a kick out of their unchecked authority.
When a kid would ask: “Can I go to the bathroom?”
She’d respond: What will you do in there, take a bath?”
And when the kid corrected themselves and replied: “Can I go to the restroom?”
She’d reply: “I’m not sure. Can you?”.
She created a kind of prickly, passive-aggressive fog over the room.
On the day she subbed, she said we would be using the entire class period to finish our short stories and we needed to turn them in before the bell rang.
But I was in luck. My story was already finished. I’d even given it an ingenious title: “CAR CLUE”.
I walked up to the front desk, slapped my story down, and returned to my seat to spend the rest of class reading some R.L. Stine.
Not five minutes later, the classroom aid called me back. She told me she had read my story and was ‘scandalized’ by it. She described it as ‘nasty’ and ‘in-appropriate’ for the classroom. I hadn’t really thought about the fact that I had turned in a list of murders, as a homework assignment. And unsure of how to respond to her outrage, I nodded along, as if I agreed with her.
She said she could not, and would not, accept this story. She then held up the loose-leaf page and dramatically ripped it into two pieces. Then she ripped it into four pieces, crumbled them up, and dropped them into the waste paper basket.
She said I needed to write a new, better story before the end of class or I would fail the assignment.
I stomped back to my desk and pulled out another loose-leaf page. I wasn’t heartbroken or sad so much as I was deeply annoyed. I’d turned in a fine piece of writing. Sure, it was kinda dumb, but that was the POINT! This Classroom Aid didn’t get me. She didn’t get comedy. She didn’t get Clue.
How was I supposed to come up with a new story this woman would accept?
So I decided to write an even dumber story- out of spite! The greatest artistic motivator on earth. Something unfunny, uninteresting, and that only a mean Classroom Aide would enjoy.
This new story concerned A Nice Young Boy. And would get the title: “A Nice Young Boy”. And like Clue Car, it was less a story in the traditional sense, and more a list of sentences detailing nice things.
This Nice Young Boy loves to be happy. He loves to be nice. This Nice Young Boy loves flowers. This Nice Young Boy loves watching bumblebees on flowers. He loves to look at rainbows. He loves to share candy with his friends. He loves to be kind to bugs and the elderly. He loves the grass and the sun. He loves to be nice to everyone. He is a Nice Young Boy.
The story was so sweet my teeth started to hurt.
I finished this nice story before the bell rang and turned it in to the classroom aid.
She made me stand at her desk while she read it.
When she finished, she looked at me with genuine happiness and said, “See? Isn’t this much better? Good job.”
That was shocking. Not only did she accept the assignment, but she liked it. And, truth be told, from that day forward, she was much nicer and more supportive towards me as a student.
I had written a story that only a mean old jerk would appreciate, and a mean old jerk appreciated it.
I learned a valuable artistic lesson that day.
It’s easy to amuse yourself, but if you want to succeed-
WRITE FOR YOUR AUDIENCE.
Thanks for Reading! & Happy Thanksgiving
November 2025.
Hilarious story!!! 😝