I Pledge Allegiance

The other day on my walk home, Poison came on my playlist. You know the song: duh-duh-duh-duh, duh duh-duh, duh duh…girl, I must warn you. Bel Biv Devoe. General early 90s awesomeness.

I had a dream and Poison was in it and I convinced myself that the lyrics “big butt and smile” are, in fact, “big button smile” which is ludicrous, I know, but in my dream, I googled the lyrics and the result was “big button smile”. And my dream was so real that I started to question my original knowledge of the song.

So of course, I did what anyone would do when they want a quick answer to something- I posed it to my Facebook family, who got a good laugh and repeatedly corrected me while laughing at me.

Seriously, a “big button smile”? you ask.

But honestly, I’ve done worse. My favorite phrase fuck up: Richard Stands.

Who is Richard Stands? you ask. Let me tell you what I know about him. He was somebody pretty fucking for real and awesome because for years, I stood up every morning after my teacher took roll, placed my little, brown hand over my heart, looked at the United States flag and with youthful sincerity, pledged my allegiance to Mr. Richard Stands.

Every day for years.

I was so confident in myself and my inability to be wrong about something so basic as The Pledge that when I once happened to glance at the words of The Pledge printed on the top of my pencil box (remember those, old folks?) and noticed there was no mention of one Richard Stands, I assumed that to be a mistake of my pencil box makers, not myself.

I pledged to Richard Stands until 10th grade.

Oh yeah. That’s how big an asshole I was. Until 10th fucking grade I said that shit.

Needless to say, when I finally read the words, I was seriously disappointed that Mr. Stands was nowhere to be found and means nothing to the well-being of the republic.

Anyway, this all leads back to the other day’s contemplation of “big button smile” and you now see why it makes perfect sense for me to come up with that phrase and then convince myself it’s correct. That’s how I get down.

HOLLA, all you big button smile bitches.