Now We See Through a Class Dankly

May 01, 2006

We had another unexpected extension of the ski season this Saturday, overlapping the opening of yard sale season. Sunny meltdown conditions exposed rushing rivulets and rocks, the torso of the ski lift operator and the top of my head. I skied in the sun, hatless and happy, over a million snow cones, assumed unflavored. I didn't taste any of them in spite of a few knee-twisting falls and an upward crawl to retrieve a lost ski.
We left the mountains in time to get to an open house, at the university I'm considering, that was to begin at 2 PM. When we got back to the valley it was dark and cold. Up to last week I would have said it was dank and left it at that. But being in second grade changed all that. The teacher was asking the kids for "ank" words. When the kids at my table ran out of ideas I would whisper the names of some of the Ank family I'm familiar with, like Hank and dank.
"Dank," volunteered the young man, one eye out for the teacher's approval, one eye speculating on me dubiously.
"Dank?" questioned the teacher, "I'm not sure that's a word."
"Yes, it means cold and dark," I advocated, while wondering if I was going to get in trouble for cheating.
We talked about dank that night at dinner. We looked it up in the dictionary. Like I was saying, the valley was dark and cold and dank. I drove through the dankness to the open house. It was OVER at two. That's the kind of behaviour that may automatically make me ineligible for admission.


Comments (1) I love the title! This was poetic and funny. Thanks for sharing it with us. I'm going to have to look dank up myself, now, for a refresher.
Posted by: Calamity Jane at May 1, 2006 06:12 AM