#871 Why Aardvark Never Landed on the Moon- Chuck Palahniuk
Rabbit, Rooster and Aardvark were the fifth-grade nerds.
They were undersized and over-brained and because that made them stand out,
they were ostracized and bullied.
“…came from clean homes and parents who expressed love and
respect for them. It goes without saying that they were beaten by bullies
almost weekly.”
This aggression would not stand. They were at their wits
end, so being geniuses, they came up with a genius solution. They would start
failing and drop back a few grades. Then, they would be bigger than their piers
and could once again be as smart as they wanted without fear of retribution. In
a fun reference to one of Palahniuk’s most popular books, they called it “Flunk
Klub.” And as you might have guessed: “The first rule of Flunk Klub, is you
don’t talk about Flunk Klub.”
“Watching television seems to help, but it took brainpower
to be so dumb.” They were so intent on their own dumbining, that they started
sniffing glue to seal the deal. Their success at hand, their plan caused
unintended consequences and instead of graduating to the next grade they just
graduated to harder drugs.
This is one of a few stories in this collection that use
animals as human characters. It reminds me of the Far Side cartoon by Gary
Larsen.
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