For two weeks now at work I’ve been laminating yearbook
covers for various schools in America, mostly up and down the west coast, to
include Hawaii, and the lower east coast, mostly Florida. I’ve watched hundreds
of versions go by, most of them in the range of 200-400 per version. The whole
order is for 60,000 sheets, so that’s a lot of schools. Anyhow, I’ve noticed a
trend and I must say I don’t like it.
For the most part, schools have picked out a generic layout
and have added their name. A few have been creative, a few have been drawn by
students themselves, and my very favorite one is very simple, but a colorful
drawing of the school in Crayon, and the school’s name written in cursive by a
fourth grader. Cursive isn’t quite lost yet.
What I don’t like is the high percentage of school mascots,
and team names that are all the same. Or, within a few similar names. First
off, cats win hands down. In order, Wildcats, then Tigers, then Lions. What the
hell is a Wildcat? Beats me. But next we have birds. Very specifically the
Roadrunner(s). In the cartoon, the roadrunner stands as tall as his arch
nemesis, Wyle-E-Coyote. But in real life, they are much smaller, and hardly
deserve to be chased by a large dog. I get it, they’re fast. Anyway, Eagles are
next, and then Falcons. And that makes up about 90% of all of the team names
for the high schools that I’ve mentioned above. The remaining ten percent are
mostly super heroes, horribly depicted Native-Americans simply labeled, “Indians”,
and then obscure, I’m sure local, animals.
I was thinking of what I would use for my team mascot for my
life. Of course my life-team is made up of sooo many players. It would only
make sense to use the platypus. I didn’t say duck-billed because they’re all
duck-billed. I did think it would be neat if there were people-lipped platypuses,
because in my head, I could talk to them.
Here are some reasons I think my team should be the Platypi,
which is absolutely not the plural of platypus, but for the sake of the team, I’ve
created the word. The male platypus has spurs on his hind feet that are
connected to a gland that produces toxic venom. I would use this to kick my
opponent before a big play to render him useless. This wouldn’t work well on a
pitcher in baseball because the defense controls the ball, and the pitcher
would just be laying there on the mound, foaming at the mouth. Grow up. The
poison would kill a dog, but not a person, so stop letting your dogs play with
them at the platypus park.
It's a mammal, but it lays eggs! I’m not a Doctor, but I
think eggs are fertilized outside the body? I don’t know, but I think people
can fertilize eggs, which means I can make a whole army of platypeople and I
can train them in all sorts of intramural activities both during, and after
school.
Here’s my favorite platypus superpower: They don’t have
nipples, but they do produce milk! Much like my friend Erik Paulsen, their milk
oozes from the ducts of their mammary glands onto special patches of skin. That
is my favorite sentence that I have ever written, anywhere. I hope he reads it.
Last but not least, another platyfact as I now call them,
they don’t have teeth. Sort of like birds, they have grinding plates, so as
they are hunting, underwater, the only place they hunt, they scoop up gravel
and rocks which they use to grind their food into digestible pieces.
And that is my recipe for a school mascot. Don’t judge me.
