Choose Your Own Deficiency

Did anyone else have an insanely dumb kid in their fourth grade class try to give a book report on a "Choose your own adventure" book?

For some reason, I keep hearing and reading about the CYOA series all over the place. It's like they're making some kind of drastic, and very unlikely, comeback. Are kids reading these things again/still? If they had kept the room full of monkeys with typewriters going, wouldn't they have written enough of them to fill the Grand Cayon twice over by now. I swear, it seemed like they'd come out with a new one every month or so.

But really, all I can think about when someone brings up those books is the kid in my class who did a book report on one. I couldn't tell you which one he used, mostly because there were a million and you just died every time until you cheated to get to the end, but it doesn't matter anyway. Everyone had a kid like him in their class. He was the funny looking, awkward guy that picked his nose and ate it. He'd talk with his mouth full of PB&J, spraying the lunch table and anyone within range with multi-sized pieces of half-chewed, saliva covered, jelly rimmed grossness. Then, the alien liquid you assumed he must use to digest his food while it's still in his mouth, would run down his dirty chin and dry, festering there for the remainder of the day. He was the guy you tried with all your little might and force of will to avoid when the teach paired the class into groups. You were convinced that he lice, if not fleas, and that being seen talking to him meant certain social death.

I can still see the poor bastard standing in front of the class, seriously trying to give a pathetic report on a pseudo book, while the rest of the class either tried to ignore him or were shaking their heads at the shear stupidity of what they were witnessing. I remember being filled with a shallow sadness, only to rationalize myself out it with the justification that he had done it to himself. That wasn't totally true of course, since life had handed him a deck of cards that wasn't even close to full and most of which were covered in honey and dirt. Most children's strong suit isn't compassion.

My only consolation is, knowing how fucked up life can be, he's probably the CEO of a fortune 500 company, with a super-model wife and a house the size of Wisconsin now. Honestly, I hope that's the case, because universal karma owed that guy big time.