On meet the teacher night in August 1987 I walked in to my fourth grade classroom for the very first time and smugly announced that I already knew all of my times tables by heart.

And then, in front of God, country, my parents and the entire fourth grade; Mr. Mattingly threw out a 12 x 9 or something equally as bewildering and naturally I balked.

I learned two things that evening.

1)  I don’t actually know everything and that’s okay.

2)  Mr. Mattingly was kind of an asshole.

I never rarely boasted again.  I chose my assertions about my self very carefully.   It landed me some decent work in public relations, for a while.  But then it felt contrived and spin-doctor-y and I was scary good at it – which I couldn’t boast about (see above) so I abandoned it (unless there is someone reading this right now who wants to pay me to do it and then I’ll make a concession, but I will absolutely *probably not* help you sell ‘chaw’ to teens).

If not public relations, there had to be somewhere to exercise my ego.  So I began to write.

Writers have very hyperactive egos, it’s true.

We say we write for ourselves, and that might be true to some extent – and possibly for some people in its entirety – but we also write because we are slaves to our tireless egos.

Every once in a while something really cool happens.  Your words resonate.  Your voice is heard.

And your ego is satiated for the briefest of moments.

Kind of like when earlier this week I was on NPR!

Yep, you read that right.  I. Was. On. National. Public. Freaking. Radio.

“Booyah!  Take that, Mr. Mattingly!”

PS: 108

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