Day 173: A Random Number Of Words About A Random Object

I’m not feeling it today. I don’t need to explain to you why. I don’t owe you anything, Mom. Oh wait. Yes I do. I owe you the world. And you deserve it! But no. I’m just not feeling it. And even though I have a whole queue of subjects to write about, I want nothing to do with any of them. My current brain state would not do it justice. So I told a coworker to name a random object and to choose a number between 200 and 500. So with that, here’s 340 words about batons.

I feel like Keshon was trying to gaslight me. I’m not sure if the word is being used properly, but it feels right. Batons typically have a negative rap, as for the last few decades they have been synonymous with police brutality. But back when I was a kid, there was another use for a baton that didn’t involve beating someone mercilessly based on the color of their skin: twirling.

Remember twirling batons? Whatever happened to that?

When I was younger, I thought it was a legit career choice. My cousin was in colorguard and it seemed like really hard work. I would have to sit through her practices and they were excruciatingly long. So long that my Gameboy would die. I’m not sure why twirling a baton was so important in the 90s, but it surely was.

I also spent a lot of time playing with toy batons. You know, the ones you buy at the dollar store and they have the frilly stuff at the ends. The frilliness adds some oohs and ahhs to your twirls. Or at least that’s what I always assumed. Sometimes they made weird noises when you turned them upside-down, but I don’t think that was an official baton. That might’ve been more in the Rain Stick category. Either way, I sucked at twirling toy batons and I’m grateful that it’s not a vital skill needed in life.

Also, when I was a kid, I spent a lot of time looking at maps. I thought that was something every kid does, but apparently I’m alone. Regardless, I always thought the capital of Louisiana was pronounced Baton Rogue. As in, the object with the frills that I was really bad at twirling and the X-Men character. That made a whole lot of sense to me, as Gambit was Cajun. He was also in love with Rogue. So I figured that him dating a woman named after his home capital was logical. Turns out I was dead wrong.

I’m bad at both twirling and pronouncing.

– TeeCoZee