Dear Penthouse:

It was the pencil sharpener.  That was her undoing.  Clever boys that we were, and so enamored with each other, Rube, Jesse (the missing Bob) and I,and enamored with all things dork, previously enumerated by my esteemed compatriots, we were not to be stopped.  Our vision of world conquest consisted of irritating teachers, being witty, and wearing snazzy neckwear made out of utensils (Rube started that in the late eighties.  Now ya know).  So...the pencil sharpener.  After being triangulated to equidistant and painfully seperate parts of Mrs. Jeffer's classroom, a funny thing happened: The Pencil Plague.  Fragile creatures they were, and easily rent in twain.  Or dulled.  Or discarded for new ones.  Our pencils  were constantly in need of maintenance.  Which necessitated travel  across the miles of  space between us. They tried in vain to divide us!!  VICTORY!!  We would barrage our unsuspecting and naive educators and classmates with all manner of dorkiness: Impressions,Holy Grail quotes, Tales of the Cthulhu  Mythos, Discordianism, Faux Britishness (save for Rube, who was in fact  an elderly british woman through most of his young life) and later, with the addition of Allan, Bauhaus covers  at hilarious volume.  We debated (debate class style), parlayed out talents into theater, got into physical altercations with rednecks and wrote amazing comedy, later to be turned into the sketch comedy show STOP MOVING ALL THE FUCK OVER THE PLACE as seen on HBO.  We made teachers and women cry.  We transcended the dominant paradigm.  Of High School.  In North Carolina.  It was not so difficult.