Bundles of Grundle

I went to a very interesting middle school. It was predominantly white Jews or WASPs. Most parents were filthy rich, I was a middle class Catholic who happened to get a scholarship. Lucky me. Anyway, it was a good experience, it taught me what never to be like and gave me a distinct hatred of Volvos and Saabs since most of the kids' parents bought them those cars to drive. I was on the campus of Connecticut College, which I had to take a bus to every morning at the asscrack of dawn. Homeroom was at 0715 and we got out of class at 1530, so a significantly longer day than most middle schools, but it gets worse. The Headmaster (no I was not in Griffindorf) played Pachebel's Cannon in D Major over the loud speakers every morning for 2 years. Every morning, it never failed. I hear that song now and I get the weird smell of muffins in my nose, I have no idea why, maybe because the kitchen was cooking them that early, or maybe because rich people smell like muffins.

At that age, I had no idea what was going on, absolutely none. The only thing I had going for me was that I may have been the only person in that school who had ever gone to a public school. Not only a public school, but one with minorities! Ooooooo, exciting! Well, it was all pretty normal to me, but even for a school with a bunch of Jews, it was a pretty bigoted place. On year, this kid Jonah showed up. Jonah was a funny guy. He was a little larger, but athletic. He was funny, always happy, and laughed a lot. So naturally, people wanted to torment him, including me. We were good friends, but he was probably the most gullible person I have ever met. He also was desperate to fit in with everyone. At the time where slumber parties were still a huge hit, this was crucial. If a new band came out and someone liked them, Jonah liked them too. A new pro-team fad, Jonah had the hat. A new sneaker, you get the point. We caught onto this after a while, but god help him when we did.

Most of our sporting events' transportation was provided by the parents, which I was fine with because I hated school buses (another long story). We had been working for about two weeks to convince Jonah that a new cereal had come out that we all loved. We all couldn't believe he hadn't tried it, so Jonah felt severely out of place and didn't know what to do. Chances are very high that he looked everywhere for this cereal, but because it was so popular, alas, it was "out of stock". The cereal's name was "Bundles of Grundle" and was completely fictitious. Jonah loved that cereal, because we all loved it. He loved it so much that he wanted to strike up a conversation with his mom about it on the way to one of our basketball games. "Mom, you know that cereal we keep getting, Bundles of Grundle? Isn't is awesome?" "Jonah, what the hell are you talking about, that is disgusting, don't talk like that." "Mom, seriously, tell the guys how much we like it." Well, that was the end of that conversation because she pretty much flipped out on him and we were trying so hard not to laugh that snot was running out of our ears. Needless to say, when the truth came out, Jonah's mom called most of our parents and because it was a prissy ass private school, the public school kid got blamed for it, me. I ate the bundle of grundle.