Finally - Neatness Doesn't Count
Penn Jillette

My computer and I can now crush
Nancy Marcus like the insignificant
insect she always was.

I graduated from high school in 1973, a long time ago. I didn't go to college. ("Any college that will take me isn't good enough," I told my guidance councilor. When he didn't recognize this line as a Groucho reference, I took that as the final smidgen of proof that traditional education had nothing more to teach me.) I'm middle-aged. Some people don't like it when a 37 year old calls himself middle-aged. "Rolling Stone" magazine really hated it when I called myself "middle-aged" 6 years ago. They wanted to call me "young." They have motives. They want to call most everyone "young," so Keith Richard isn't "elderly." It's about time we all admitted aloud that every member of the Rolling Stones is older than our Vice President (I'm writing this before the election, but I think this is true no matter which of the two indistinguishable scumball parties wins.) When I was in high school we didn't have a computer. We had a teletype that hooked into the computer at the University of Massachusetts for a few hours a day. It was a giant, loud, scary, typewriter that was used to make pictures of Snoopy out of "X"s and "O"s. I didn't see it as a friend. I didn't recognize this hunk of junk as the predecessor of the tool that would help me crush Nancy Marcus. You don't know Nancy Marcus. Even if you spent last night with Nancy Marcus, you wouldn't know her because I've changed her name. I changed her name for a two reasons. 1 - I don't know much about libel law but I know she's not famous and non-famous people can sue you like motherhubbards for accusing them of dropping a hat. And 2 - I can't remember how to spell her real name. There is no 3 - "I don't want to cause her any more trouble," or "it wasn't really her fault." Compassion and forgiveness don't enter into it. She was the name for my high school pain and that will not be forgotten. Nancy kept to herself and studied hard. Every assignment assigned to little Ms. Marcus came in on-time, with perfect penmanship, and impeccable spelling. She never raised her hand in class, but when she was called on, the answer was not only A textbook answer but the textbook answer from whatever pages of the textbook had been required or optional reading from the day before. I, on the other hand, loved to read and considering what a loud, unpleasant, crazy-looking, troublemaker I was, read a good half of the assigned reading, understood it, and enjoyed it. But teachers couldn't read my handwriting (neither can I). I couldn't spell. (I like to trash elected officials as much as the next guy but on "potatoe," I'm with Dan, man. If I had to choose between a 3 by 5 card and my own judgement on spelling, I wouldn't even hesitate. I would have used bodily force to get that little snot-nosed upstart to slap on that terminal "e.") My Mom taught me to type but I would make little mistakes that would embarrass me enough to throw it away but not enough to over-come the inertia of the laziness and retype it. So, I watched Nancy get "A"s with her perfect-little-neatness-counts-clear-vinyl-cover-and-red-binder-reports and I turned in sloppy first drafts or nothing at all. I didn't get praise for my writing and I blamed Nancy. Now I have a computer and it kicks ass. I type "indistingushible" and it asks me if I mean "indistinguishable." I send the whole thing by modem, perfect-neat-little-packages-of-binary-grooviness. Because of computers, I now get praise and money. But I still blame Nancy Marcus.