Loading summary
Transcript10 lines
- [00:00]
Rosetta Stone Advertiser
As we approach the end of the year, I'm thinking about the next. Next year is the year I finally make my Spanish better than my 9 year olds. Rosetta Stone is the most trusted language learning program available on desktop or as an app, and it truly immerses you in the language that you want to learn. I can't wait to use Rosetta Stone and finally speak better than my 9 year old who's been learning Spanish in his own way. Rosetta Stone is the trusted expert for 30 years. With millions of users and 25 languages offered spoken Spanish, French, Italian, German, Korean, I could go on fast language acquisition. Rosetta Stone immerses you in many ways. There are no English translations, so you can really learn to speak, listen and think in that language. Start the new year off with a resolution you can reach today. The Moth listeners can take advantage of this Rosetta Stones lifetime membership for 50% off, visit rosettastone.com moth that's 50% off. Unlimited access to 25 language courses for the rest of your Life. Redeem your 50% off@RosettaStone.com Moth Today.
- [01:09]
Dan Kennedy
Welcome to the Moth Podcast. I'm Dan Kennedy. This podcast is supported by Maker's Mark Handcrafted Bourbon. Because it's time to mix things up with Maker's Mark and the cocktail party, Maker's mark Bourbon whiskey, 45% alcohol by volume, distilled in Loretto Kentucky Red Reminds listeners to drink responsibly. Also, we know we mention this from time to time, but the Moth is a non profit organization. So please consider helping keep our podcast free and supporting our other programming by becoming a Moth member. For those of you who do, you'll be invited to join us at our Members show here in New York City on November 14th. You can visit themoth.org for details and thank you so much. We couldn't do this without you and and we're very grateful for your support. This week we bring you two stories from our Story Slam series. And as you probably know, our Story Slams are our open mic storytelling competitions. Our first story by Carrie Weeks was told live at a Moth Story Slam in New York City. The theme of the night was theft.
- [02:24]
Carrie Weeks
So here's my story. Nine years old, first time going to summer camp and my grandfather gives me before I go, he gives me his old pocket knife. It's practically an antique. Oh yeah. The other thing this story has is a 1970s element to it because this is the 1970s and so the first thing all of us boys do when we get to camp is, is we Pull out our knives, and we start throwing them at things, trying to get them to stick the way Daniel Boone did. And because it's the 1970s, there's nothing unusual about a bunch of young children throwing sharp knives around. And I got mine to stick in the floorboard. It was like. And it was great. But when I pulled it out, the tip broke off. But anyway, camp goes on. And a few days later, I notice my knife is missing. And I look everywhere for it. I look high, I look low. It's gone. But then one day, I'm walking through camp, and I see this group of boys throwing knives at a tree. And something tells me I should check this out. And sure enough, there's this boy there throwing my knife. Now, there's no mistaking this knife because the handle was red and green, but the colors met in the middle and kind of swirled together in a trippy, psychedelic way. And I've never seen a knife like that before since. So I walk up to this boy. He's a little older, but I walk up to him and I say, hey, that's my knife. And he says, no, it's mine. And I say, no, that's my knife. My grandfather gave it to me. And he says, no, he didn't. He says, my grandfather gave it to me. And I'm confused all of a sudden. Maybe I should have thought this through a bit more. I thought he would just hand it over. And the other boys, they, like, move in close. And I'm thinking, could it be possible that his grandfather gave him the exact same knife that my grandfather gave me? I mean, is this a thing? And I just didn't know it. But I look at the knife. He's holding it in his hand, and I look at the blade, and I see that the tip of the blade is squared off as though it were broken. And I say, that's my knife, because I broke the tip off when I stuck it in the floor. And he says, what, that? No, it came that way, so you can use it like a screwdriver. Whoa, this kid's good. And I look at the other boys, and I'm not getting any help from them. And so I wander off, just thinking to myself, screwdriver? I never thought of that. Well, as you can imagine, this really bugged me. And I don't mean just while I was at camp, but, like, for the rest of my life. And, you know, I kept thinking, why did I fold so easily? Why didn't I go to the counselors? And the only thing I can think of is this. I'm the son of a physicist. And so you'll know I used to ask my dad these questions all the time. Like, dad, how far away is the sun? Dad, how fast is the speed of light? Dad, what's the closest star? And he would give me these answers and these numbers that were just so fucking huge, I couldn't get my mind around them. So my point is this. I, better than most other children, had an idea of just how vast the universe is and therefore how infinite the possibilities are. So the thing is, at the time I thought, well, maybe the kid's telling the truth. Now, wait a minute. My wife. My wife has this cousin who went to camp with this jacket, this really nice, expensive jacket. And sure enough, a few days go by and the jacket's missing. And a few more days go by and he sees a kid wearing his jacket. But Donald, and my wife's cousin. Donald was smart. Donald goes straight to the counselors and they haul the two of them together. And Donald says, that's my jacket. And the other kid says, no. And so now it's just Donald's word against his. But Donald says, no, I can prove it's my jacket because if you look in the breast pocket, you'll find a little jar of alcohol with a wart floating in it. Apparently, Donald had a wart removed before going to camp and thought that was a great thing to bring along. I chose a flashlight and a pocket knife. But anyway, you know, even in this vast universe, the chances of there being two kids with identical jackets, each with a jar of alcohol with a wart floating in it is next to Neil. So the only reason why I bring this up is because this is what I was thinking of when some 32 years later, I become the landlord of a small apartment building. I know I should have become an astrophysicist, but I thought being a landlord was more glamorous. And one of the first things I did as a landlord was I threw this guy out because he was a small time drug dealer. So on the day he's moving out, I get a call from his neighbor across the hall, a guy I call Budweiser Bob. And Budweiser Bob says, hey, that druggie is stealing your refrigerator. I just thought you should know. And so I hop down there, I tear down there, and sure enough, in the driveway is a pickup truck. And in the back of the pickup truck is a refrigerator. So I charge up the stairs and I demand to know just what the hell is going on. And Nick, the druggie calmly tells me and says, dude, when I moved in here, that refrigerator was so gross. I bought my own refrigerator and swapped it out and I put that one in storage, and now I'm just putting it back. And I look in the kitchen and sure enough, there's another refrigerator. It's a little old, a little dirty, but it's working. And I'm trying to think this through. I mean, would someone really go to all that trouble of just swapping out a refrigerator and then putting in storage and bringing it back? Or would a guy go to the trouble of stealing a used refrigerator just to screw his landlord and replacing it with an even more used refrigerator? And, well, the answer to both these questions is yes. But I look up and there's Nick, and he's expecting me to say something. And there's his buddies who are helping him move, and they're expecting me to say something. So I walk up to Nick and I look him in the eye and I say to him, you sweep up real good before you leave, because there's just too many possibilities in this universe. Thank you.
- [09:46]
Dan Kennedy
Carrie Weeks is currently working on a book about how he and his wife gave it all up to open a bar in a small Vermont town. Carrie's now back in New York City, where he works in the film business, dressing sets and writing stories. The next story you're about to hear was told live at a moth store earlier this year here in New York City by Michaela Bly. The theme of the night theft.
- [10:17]
Michaela Bly
In the elementary school where I teach, there are Legos that are very valuable and Legos no one gives a shit about. The ones you don't really care about are the ones. There are thousands of the. The gray two by fours, the black two by fours, anything that's red. For some reason, all we have are red Legos. And the ones that are valuable are the things that you can't really find. So there's a second grade, a third grade, and a fourth grade. Everyone's got bins, and in these bins, the things you very rarely see are anything lime green. I think once upon a time we had a set that was lime green. Anything that has a picture on it, it's kind of magical. And then these jewels, they're these little plastic, clear colored Legos and they really look valuable. I mean, I'm kind of psyched about them too. And every class has, especially my class, has what I like to call the black hole boys. They are the boys who sit anytime there's choice time and put together Legos and Discuss theories of outer space and infinity. And they build spaceships. And they're like, well, but, okay, but could there be a black hole that would be strong enough to pull other black holes in? And they all sort of think about that for a while. And they're my boys. I like them. I'm really into them. And most of playing Legos anywhere in my school is really mostly just pawing through, looking for the valuable ones. Of course, you could build with them, but that's not the fun part. The fun part is I found this orange jewel or whatever, so that's always a big deal. And all the bins are outside underneath the cubbies. So every class has their bins near their classes cubbies. I teach third grade. The second graders come to me one day and they say, we need your help. We think someone's been stealing our jewels. Now they have to dismantle all their Legos at the end of every week so that it's really fair so you have a chance to paw through and find the jewels anew every Monday. And they have been noticing that over the course of several weeks, they find fewer and fewer jewels, and they suspect my class. And I say, you know what? That's not really fair. I'm sure that it is not my guys who are doing that. And they say, well, we think you should look through their bins, at their spaceships and find out if they've got our jewels. And I said, you know what? That's not what we're going to do. We're going to trust them. We're going to ask them, did you take those jewels? And if they say no, we're going to believe them. Because secretly I'm thinking, a, there's no way my boys did it, and B, I don't really want to get in the middle of that if that's what's going on. So we ask my boys and the sort of ringleader, the head of the Black Hole boys, Edward, is this very smart, very sour kid whose spaceships are amazing. I mean, they look like they could really go. He says, no, we have not. Have you tried the fourth grade? Because those guys think they're so big. And so me and these three little second graders go to the fourth grade, and we say to some of the fourth graders who are playing with Legos in a very much tougher, apparently way, did you guys take these jewels? And the fourth graders say, no. And then later, privately, they say, you know, are you sure the second graders are telling the truth? Because they think they're so Cute. There begins to have. There's a culture of fear developing across all three grades. No one trusts each other. Everyone's sort of looking at each other's things that they're building and the teachers are picking up on it too. I'm sort of watching everyone's spaceships being like, I don't remember that orange one and that green one and the blue one in the second grade of 2A. That's not. I don't know if that's right. And I'm sort of getting. I'm sort of getting there too. But we're all kind of watching each other. And then I am getting homework. Edward does his homework and does more homework than he needs to, but he always forgets to hand it in. And so I just randomly, you know, I go into his cubby just to grab the math homework that I know is in there. Under the math homework is a jewel encrusted spaceship. Dazzling. The wings have wings and those wings have other things. And there's a glass window that I have literally never seen before. In the six years that I've been teaching there, I have never seen this glass window. He must have had it since the beginning of second grade and just hidden it in various places. It's beautiful. Beautiful. But I'm stuck with a dilemma. What do I do with this? If I accuse him, then, number one, the second graders are kind of intense and I'm a little worried about what they would do. Number two, I already told the second graders it couldn't have possibly been my boys. This is my reputation on the line as well. I don't want it to have been him. I could, it occurs to me, just steal it back. I could just take it. Because if he tried to say someone stole my jewel encrusted spaceship, that would be on him. That would be his. You know, that's a dilemma he would have. But then I realized that that would be. That could possibly be framing another kid. And I do have. I have my line I will not cross. So I'm not going to frame a kid. So instead I wait for a Friday when we should be taking apart our things. And he has not been taking apart the spaceship. And I wait till Friday. I get him alone and I say to him really casually, so don't forget to take apart your spaceship. And he looks at me and he knows I know. And he says something really ballsy. He goes, I did. I already did. I sit down with him, I open the cubby, I show him the spaceship and I say, this is an amazing spaceship. You did a really great job.
- [16:41]
Carrie Weeks
But.
- [16:42]
Michaela Bly
You gotta let it go. And we cut a deal. And over the course of several weeks, we dismantle the spaceship very, very slowly. I can't just smash it. I'm not gonna do that. I'm not gonna just take the whole thing apart and I start secretly putting those jewels back in other people's cubbies for him so that he can still be the head of the Black Hole boys and not lose that reputation that he has that he loves. And so that I don't have to go back on my word that my boys didn't do anything. I was an accessory to a third grade crime. There's no way around that. That's it. Thank.
- [17:22]
Dan Kennedy
Mikayla Bly is a teacher, writer, storyteller and PhD student. She was a third grade classroom teacher for several years and now does all kinds of work with, for and about kids. When it's above 50 degrees, she can be found on her bicycle all over New York City.
- [17:41]
Rosetta Stone Advertiser
Dan Kennedy is a writer and performer living in New York. He's been a part of the moth community since 1999. Follow him on Twitter ankennedynyc.
- [17:52]
Dan Kennedy
Thanks to all of you for listening and we hope you have a story worthy week. Podcast audio production by Paul Ruest at the Argo Studios in New York. The Moth Podcast and the Radio Hour are presented by prx, the Public Radio Exchange, helping make public radio more public@prx.org.