Pen Fifteen

Two thoughts on childhood, triggered by recent trips to NYC:

1. A friend and I were discussing pranks and jokes that kids play on each other.  Or, more precisely, we resurrected our absolute favorite: Club Pen Fifteen.  In case you don't remember or in case this somehow passed you by in third grade:

A: Do you want to join my club?
B: What is it?
A: It's called the Pen Fifteen Club.  It's awesome.
B: How do I join?
A: It's easy. All the members just have the club name written on their arm. I'll do it right now for you.
B: OK, I'm in.

Person B then spends the rest of the day with PEN15 fancifully written on his or her arm, then finds another unaware and uninitiated youth, and advances to the role of Person A.

Genius. Comic genius. Perhaps the only joke from elementary school that still makes me laugh.

2. I am forever delighted when I hear a song I used to sing along to as a kid, and realize that there are a number of metaphors that really passed me by. Monday in the car I heard this song and realized it was not about driving but actually about coke. That blew my mind:



This in turn reminded me about something else great: misunderstanding song lyrics as a child.  Like how I thought a second Eagles song was about hiding lion eyes.  And how I thought this one went "Every time I poop I lose":



That one still really cracks me up, by the way.  It gets stuck in my head all the time, unprompted.  And it takes a whole lot of self-restraint to not belt out all of "Every time I poop I lose" when this happens.  I am laughing right now just thinking about it.

xoxo

Philly.com has taped up like eight thousand xoxo with love, Philadelphia ads all over Penn Station, which I guess is just fine by me.  It's loads better than sneaker ads, I'll give them that.

However, the text is just - I don't know how else to put it - weird.  I think there was one that said something along the lines of "let's conspire by the fire. with love, Philadelphia."  What does that even mean?  And then there's this: "Pack an extra set of pajamas and stay an extra night. xoxo Philly."  Do people seriously pack a pair of pajamas for every night they're staying somewhere?!  And can it instead read, "Pack a fucking snow plow and stay an extra night! xoxo Philadelphia."  Because we really need those more than a second set of flannels.

Can someone please explain these ads to me?  Am I missing something clever?  Otherwise, I'm just filing this away under "Yet another reason Philadelphia is broke."

Goodnight.

Overheard: Penn Station, New York Edition

Two girls - who I am assuming to be American based on the absence of foreign accent.  And by "girls," I mean "college-age teenagers."

Girl 1 [looking at departure board]: Where is Chicago, anyways?  It's near Boston, right?
Girl 2 [looking pensive]: Yeah.
A moment passes.
Girl 2: No wait, no it's not.  It's totally in the South.  I think it's in Georgia?
Girl 1: Oh, cooool.

At the Met

William Langenheim, Frederick Langenheim Looking at Talbotypes. Daguerreotype, ca. 1849-51.