Here it is: how I got Horrible Histories banned from my school.
Sit down, I’m going to tell you a story.
Imagine a little girl, a 4’9” fifth grader with dimples and twinkling blue eyes. Oh, look, she’s going to the school library. Perhaps she’s going to rent Little Women, or read On the Banks of Plum Creek by Laura Ingalls Wilder!
Five minutes later, she exits the library holding a large stack of books called “Horrible Histories.”
And she’s thumbing through one called “Angry Aztecs.”
Record scratch. Freeze frame.
Yup, that’s me! The only history geek in a fifty mile radius. Living in Bumhicksville, Nowhere (name changed, but very accurate) is pretty terrible, and going to school at Caucasian Christian School of Goodness (again, a name change, but an apt description) is even worse. I snapped a bit while I was attending, due to the lack of permissible self-expression, but horrible histories were my guiding light.
Flash forward six months.
Our teacher wants us to do a history project about an ancient civilization. Since our curriculum is Eurocentricism.JPEG, most kids pick the Greeks or Romans (and completely skip over all of the good stuff, like orgies and gladiator fights) in their presentations.
I choose my favorite ancient civilization:
The Aztecs.
My teachers knew I’d been reading Horrible Histories, but what they didn’t know was that I’d also been avidly reading all about Aztec mythology. I walk up to the front of the class, pull on a turquoise skull mask, and raise my arms to the sky.
My teacher goes sheet white.
I give my presentation and skip nothing. Nothing. Every detail of the sacrifices, every dirty, disgusting part.
It all culminates when I point to the calendar.
“It’s May!” I shout, my little girl voice rising an octave. My teacher looks like she’s about to phone the police. “The Aztecs called May Toxcatl.”
No one moves or breathed. I continue blithely.
“Toxcatl was a month dedicated to the worship of the god of the night, Tezcatlipoca.” I’m still going. Everyone is afraid. Marie, one of my classmates, looks like she’s about to cry.
“They’d dress a brave warrior as the god all year, and at the end-“ I pull the red streamers out from behind my display, shouting: “They’d sacrifice him!”
The kids shriek as the streamers of “blood” roll out across the floor.
The principal walked in, hearing the commotion, just in time for me to really get into character and shout “BLOOD FOR THE GOD OF THE NIGHT!”
And that’s how Horrible Histories and all mentions of the Aztecs were banned from my school.
Reasons I believe my friend is secretly some kind of deity
1) First time we spoke was a week after the beggining of freshman year she summed up my entire character and most of the events of my life Sherlock style. I asked her how the hell she knew all that. She just shrugged and said she figured out our entire class already.
2) The one time we had religion class instead of ethics she listened to the teacher for a few minutes, laughed and told me:
“Humans have wished to be gods so much they’ve forgotten they have to ability to create them. Imagination has truly suffered from this ‘monotheism’ stuff.”
I was confused and asked her if she was an atheist. She rolled her eyes and said:
“Oh I believe in god alright. I just don’t think the bastard deserves to be worshipped.”
3) Out of nowhere she gave me this advice:
“The only truth a liar ever told was that lies weren’t going to save you. Don’t become the liar who has to pass that wisdom on, because they speak from experience.”
4) To this day, she has one of those old-timey phones with buttons she only uses to ocassionally call someone. When I asked her why she never got a smartphone she got pouty:
“I hate social media. On Facebook they talk a lot but never say anything. If I wanted to listen to people moan about their problems and ask for help they don’t expect I’d listen to their prayers.” (Notice the choice of words)
5) I noticed she was stiff and I offered her a massage since I’m really good at it but when i started kneading her back I swear to this day those were not muscles I felt. I asked her what she did to turn her muscles into rocks covered with a thin layer of skin and she kinda froze then shrugged and said she was just really, really stiff. My hands hurt after ten minutes when I can usually go for an hour. Next time I offered she seemed surprised and laughed. She still has rocks for muscles.
6) We were having a debate over the way neural pathways are formed (I study biology and she forensics) and I jokingly asked if I could have her brain for study when she dies. She laughed.
“Sure, if you find a way to kill me you can have it. I’m actually curious what you’re gonna find.”
7) One time she was tired and miserable and I tried to comfort her. We both have really dark sense of humor so I told her she could scare the dead out of their graves with that glare. She told me the dead can’t come back and I rolled my eyes and said ‘obviously’ but she continued:
“When you die you descend to the underworld with nothing to lose. To keep you, they give you something to lose. When you want to return, they will demand it back. That’s why nobody ever leaves. The only way out is to never enter.”
8) One day she just came up to me with a disappointed look on her face. When I asked her what was wrong she was quiet for a few seconds and then just told me:
“Betrayals committed in good intentions are still damning. Just… keep that in mind.” Then she left and didn’t speak to me for three days. I still don’t know what she meant but even three years later I haven’t forgotten it.
9) We were casually sitting on a bench when, out of nowhere, she asked me: “Is it just me or have humans gotten dumber? Or have they always been this stupid and I just haven’t been paying attention?”
10) She asked me if I ever wondered what it was like to die. I said no but told her I would tell her when I found out. I meant it as a ghost joke but she smiled at me and said:
“Great. I’ll wait for you to come back. Maybe you’ll even remember me.”
In conclusion, she is some kind of low-key god and she lost her faith in humanity even before we lost our faith in her but she’s stuck with us because immortality is a bitch.
P.S. I just remembered her name is a variation on ‘Eve’. Maybe I should reconsider my atheist status?!
She totally sounds like a goddess from one of Rick Riordan’s novels honestly. I kinda love her. If you have more stories, update us, cause I love this stuff.
The other day I went to McDonald’s with my family and the guy who took my order was really loud and was basically like “HAPPY HOLIDAYS WHAT CAN I GET YOU” and I was like wow I can’t let this guy outmatch me so I yelled “I’LL TAKE A HAPPY MEAL WITH THE NUG NUGS IF I MAY” you know, like a natural well-adjusted epitome of adulthood 19 year old and he was like “CERTAINLY WOULD YOU LIKE THE MIGHTY KIDS MEAL INSTEAD WITH EXTRA FRIES” and I was so sleep deprived I essentially blacked out and apparently leaned over the counter like I was robbing the place, raised my eyebrow like a suave robin hood and said “HECK YES I WOULD GOOD SIR” and then I sat down and he yelled from across the store “WOULD YOU LIKE THE PURPLE OR BLUE SPIDER-MAN” and since purple is the more superior color that’s how I answered and long story short my parents think college changed me and that I’m now the poster child for being social and I’ve only been asked once why I’m not in a relationship yet but I know it’s gonna be brought up again and how do i tell my parents it’s because whenever I eat in the dining hall I spend the entire time playing bumper cars with the wheeley chairs and all I eat is pixie sticks and the last time I was in the library (where I’m supposed to work next semester, deAr GoD) I ripped my leggings in the bathroom pulling up my pants and I walked the entire 20 mins back to my dorm with my neon underwear peeking out from the holes like a 17th century harlot with a cocaine addiction and I’ve essentially been living off jars of peanut butter and the soundtrack to the bee movie for the past year
this thing went on so many different directions I feel like I’m high
interesting observation, tati
Do u want to see what I’m currently making in my laboratory bedroom?
yes, please
Step one of making my dinner: I gather my materials everyone knows u can’t make something out of nothing so u gotta do the thing, pull up your pants, and get your starting items
Here I have lemonade made from real lemons. This is vital because fake lemons (Also known as apples and oranges) throw off the concoction and render ur potion useless. I also have cocaine (the flavored kind)
Step two: do the thing with the other thing to make the better thing my sources tell me this is how u cook
In this case I poured 7 cocaines into my starter nectar
Step three: wiggle wiggle wiggle i do the shake
It fizzes. Chemicals do the chemical thing. Bubbles happen.
Step 4: bask in ur child’s freshly born glow
I have done it, mother. I have darkened the light yellow solution with my magic and I have come out stronger
I have prepared:
Dinner
That would literally kill you but okay.
It didn’t.
DO NOT LET MY GIRLFRIEND SEE THIS. THEY ALREADY SNORT SUGAR AND PIXIE STIX AND I KEEP TELLING THEM TO STOP. THEY WOULD DO THIS IN A HEART BEAT.
But on another note, coolio Tasha. You’re an alchemists now! Or possibly a witch… or both…
are you saying that engagement rings aren’t just cool rocks
They sloth is my favorite
STORY TIME!
Ok so when I was doing a security job on a college campus, the geology club on said campus was having their mineral and fossil sale (which is where the club gets the vast majority of its funds for the year). They had some really cool shit but their sales techniques were… uh, they were bad, just really terrible. They set up the tables, put all their stuff out, hung a sign up… and then sat there, occasionally mentioning quietly to one or two passersby “Hey we’re having our mineral and fossil sale if you want any.” Very boring, overly factual, not very attention grabbing.
Now I’m a fuckin nerd so I’m all over this shit (the sale was literally a foot away from my security post so I wasn’t even getting in trouble for spending literal hours ooh-ing and ahh-ing over the really cool stuff they had). And me being the type of nerd who must SHARE ALL THE THINGS when I find cool stuff (and who also has 18 years of customer service/retail experience to draw on), I start trying to get some of the literal hundreds of students walking by to get some of the cool things. The club only needed a couple hundred bucks and we were on the largest campus in the state so they should have been making their goal easy but almost no one was biting. So my “must share the thing” nerdiness teamed up with my “must help all the people”-ness and I did my best to pitch in and get them more sales.
Now, it was two days before valentines and a lot of the people walking by were dudes. So I start trying to get them interested with comments like “hey come check out the cool stuff you could get for your bae!”
One group of dudes paused but it didn’t seem like they were gonna stop and get any of the cool things, so I go “No, seriously, chicks dig this shit, you literally cannot go wrong here. There’s fossils and cute little carvings of manta rays and kitties, and literal gemstones here; that box is full of fucking EMERALDS that are 3 for $5. GET. SOME.”
They didn’t believe me that the ladies would go nuts for “a bunch of shiny rocks.” So I decide to prove it to them. And in the most booming voice I can muster (and I can muster quite a bit after a decade of choir classes) and yell “THEY HAVE SHINY ROCKS OVER HERE AND THEY’RE REALLY COOL!”
Literally instantly, three separate groups of ladies look straight at the tables and make a beeline for them, all of them saying some variation of “Wait, did you say shiny rocks? WHERE?! WHAT KIND?! OMG!” Suddenly a dozen or so different gals (and several dudes), who seconds ago were only thinking about getting to class, stopped in their tracks to detour to the table full of shiny rocks. Only two left without buying at least one thing.
The dudes I’d been talking to before were bewildered but convinced, so they start looking for the best shiny rocks they can get to give their SOs. Several of them came back a few days later to inform me that my seemingly ludicrous advice of “get them shiny rocks” had gotten them laid or scored them a date.
So, remember kids, GET THE BAE A SHINY ROCK. That shit WORKS.
I had a server tell me about how he was harassed into going to a church baptism ceremony by a not so close friend and to get them off his back he agreed
He decided some time before that of he was going to be forced to do this her might as well have fun with it right? So he goes to lush and buys one of the black bath bombs, and cuts it in half.
Now fast forward to the day of and he is wearing a small harness under his shirt that is keeping both haves of the bath bomb one either shoulder blade.
He volunteers to get baptised
They take him up put him in the white robe and then he waits for his turn. Now the friend who invited him had no clue what he is doing. They are pleasantly surprised to see him participating.
Honestly. A mistake on their part.
I only knew this guy for a max of 45 minutes and I could already tell this dude was a chaos entity.
So his turn comes up and they go to dunk him and the water immediately starts to foam and turn black and he starts screaming like a banchee jumps out the water and hisses at the priest
Everyone fucking lost it and her was banned from ever attending that church again.
So yeah all in all seems like a great thing to do for a hilarious story
Tyrannosaurus was not the most dangerous animal in the park. Having imprinted on its handler since infancy, the creature maintained a docile temperament all the way to adulthood, and indeed seemed to prefer feeding from its designated trough to pursuing prey. Its interactions with staff and guests showed at most a mild curiosity, and the only real terror the beast inspired was when it snuck up on trainers to sniff their hats.
The raptors were not the most dangerous animals in the park. Hollywood had greatly exaggerated their size, first of all, and while they had a mischievous streak (one individual in particular was fond of stealin zookeepers’ wallets), they were far from the hyper-intelligent murder lizards everyone expected. Their intelligence was less of the predatory sort and more the comical intelligence of a corvid, devoted mostly to play and caring for their fellow flock members.
The mosasaur was not the most dangerous animal in the park. Though it held no loyalty to the zookeepers, it had taken to training well enough, and would dutifully move to a specific section of the tank when signaled, giving the keepers space to carry out any business they needed to accomplish in its tank without fear of harm.
No, by far the most dangerous animal in the park was the Struthiomimus. Everyone expected it to be easy – what were these animals in pop culture beyond being fodder for the carnivores? Surely the bird-mimics couldn’t be much of a hassle. Sadly, they weren’t just any bird mimics.
No, in temperament, the Struthiomimus mimicked a swan.
Highly territorial and vicious to the bone, more keepers had suffering brutal beatings by the struthis than had been hurt by the rest of the park’s fauna combined. And when they learned to chew through the fences…
Well, let’s just say the Tyrannosaurus never experienced a more terrifying day in her life.
There is no Royal Navy aircraft carrier – indeed no Royal Navy ship – called “HMS Britannia”, and 15 seconds on the internet would have confirmed it.
The most recent “HMS Britannia” was the Shore Establishment now called “Royal Naval College Dartmouth”. Not somewhere likely to be at risk from lighthouses…
Writer Note: fiction is much more effective when there’s a big dollop of truth mixed with the lie. “HMS Invincible”, “HMS Illustrious” or even a default name like “HMS Ark Royal” (for US purposes, think “USS Enterprise”) would have made this story work.
As it is…<operates toilet flush>
(The Royal Yacht (decommissioned) was “HMY Britannia”, more usually called Royal Yacht Britannia, and was not an aircraft carrier even for radio-controlled scale models.)
This is a good story and funny. Don’t know why Peter has to throw cold water comments on it. So petty.
Because it’s a lie, and a stupid lie that could have been a damn good lie if anyone had done their homework. (Except that it’s already got legs – US Navy vs Canadian lighthouse etc.)
Get the facts right and the lie looks good.
If the facts are checkably wrong, you’re sunk.
Even before your fictional aircraft carrier runs into your fictional lighthouse.
“The more truth you mix with a lie, the more believable it gets.”
Jeez, guys. TRY HARDER. Do your homework. Tell a lie that’ll stand up to a little stress testing, you know? (Because what’s the point, otherwise?) And learn to subject what you hear to a little more stress testing, too.
Otherwise, as you drift gently into adult life, you’ll get in the habit of believing whatever (for example) your local government tells you. And then where will we be?
And also: does the truth really hurt THAT much? You want to have that looked at.
No matter how many times I see it nor how many times the affiliations of each change, it’s still funny to me.
wait do those tin can phones really work?? I thought this was all a myth.
I just looked up a video this is wild I’m making one tomorrow
in my high school Art 4 class while we were no doubt supposed to be getting ready for a Very important Art Show, two of my friends made one of these phones but instead of talking into it they would write messages and clip it to the string and slide it across the string to the other and when the art teacher asked why they said “we’re texting” and she could not BELIEVE it, this was the FUNNIEST thing she’d heard all year
so she got on her office phone and called the principal and said “two girls are texting in my classroom I need you to come take their phones and issue them detentions” and we all waited like assholes for him to show up and when he asked where they were she gestured at my friends “texting” on their tin can phone and my principal was already a pretty tired dude but that was the most exhausted I think he ever looked.
