History Bee

In fourth grade I decided I wasn't going to do any more homework, grades be damned. It was a decision that, for the most part, served me well until junior year of high school. For the most part...

I bring this up only because our setting is Mr. Butler's seventh grade geography classroom, and I'm frantically tearing through two months of American geography worksheets. That bastard, Mr. Butler, said I wasn't allowed to participate in the world geography / history bee unless I'd filled out dozens upon dozens of worksheets proving that I had memorized the fifty states, their capitals, and facts about the state. Of course, I hadn't memorized the state capitals, and he had sprung the bee and requirements to enter it on us totally without warning. Also, this requirement to turn in all assigned worksheets was applicable only to me. Since I was last I had until my thirty other classmates answered their questions and then I would be required to turn in the worksheets or be disqualified.

Index.
FLIPFLIPFLIPFLIP
Find the answer.
Write down the answer.
Repeat.

By the time it was my turn to answer the question I'd finished three-fourths of the worksheets. Mr. Butler deigned to let me answer the question anyway.

"What is the world's smallest continent?"

I couldn't help but notice that the questions had absolutely nothing to do with the capital of Nebraska or anything he'd tried to teach the class in the past year. And what the hell was that? He knew I read the 1995 World Almanac for shits and giggles during free reading.

"Australia."

I finished up my worksheets while the questions worked their way around again. When I looked up to answer my question there were only five other people.

"Who was the first European to discover the new world?"

That question had knocked out the two previous people. I only remembered the answer because I had been a little upset that we had been deprived of a Viking-based holiday.

"Leif Erikson."

I watched as the questions slowly weeded out my competition until it finally came around to me again.

"What is the world's smallest independent country?"

The box behind the altar is called a tabernacle, the thing inside the tabernacle is called a monstrance, the gold and white flag next to the United States' flag is for Vatican City. Vatican City is the smallest country in the world, and its military is composed of the baddest Swiss mercenaries money and religious zealotry can buy. It might have been trivia to him, but it was religion to me.

"Vatican City."

And with that I had beaten everyone else in that period, but we weren't done. I had to beat the quad.

The next period everyone in the quad piled into Ms. Haberkorn's classroom. Ms. Haberkorn was our five hundred pound English teacher. I despised her for making us read The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle. However today there would be no reading inane junior romance novels or diagramming sentences. There were only four contestants this time, each from a different period, each had won their respective geography classes. The winner would go on to the school-wide competition. The other teachers of the quad announced that the theme would be World War II and we were off.

"Normandy"
"Dresden"
"Germany, Italy, and Japan."
"Battle of the Bulge."
"Berlin."
"Poland."
"Stalingrad."

The questions were coming fast and furiously, but I was ready. At that time the History Channel's motto was "All Hitler all the time." It was the only thing I watched. I devoured Luftwaffe and crapped Blitzkrieg. In short order there were only two of us left. Then it happened:

"What was the first city to have an atomic weapon dropped on it?"

AAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRGH! Damn you History Channel! Damn you and your Hitler-centric programming! I knew from being forced to watch "Fat Man and Little Boy" by my father that we dropped the skinny uranium one first, the plane that dropped it was called the Enola Gay, the fat one used plutonium, and the two cities we nuked were Nagasaki and Hiroshima. I just couldn't remember which goddamned order we did it in.

Nagasaki or Hiroshima?
Hiroshima or Nagasaki?
Boxcar.

What?

That was the name of the second bomber.
And that helps me how?
McArthur wanted to nuke the Chinese.
Screw you, brain! Just screw you!

Of course, during all this I was standing openmouthed like a stunned trout in front of god and everyone letting out a resonant "Uuuuuuummmmmmmhhhhhhh..."

Fifty-fifty chance, just GO!

"Nagasaki."