‘Requirements for Earning a Few Common, But Lesser-Known, Merit Badges ‘ by Joseph Mills

Requirements for Earning a Few Common, But Lesser-Known, Merit Badges

by Joseph Mills

Blending:  When your parents host a party, help clear away the dishes.  Pretend you don’t
hear the adults comment on your nice manners.  Collect the cups which still have wine.
Screen them for cigarette butts, matches, toothpicks, and peanut shells, then dump them
into a pitcher, preferably one that’s opaque.  Later, pour this into your regulation silver
canteen with its detachable canvas cover and genuine Boy Scouts of America logo.  Stash
this in the tent you and Johnny have set up behind the garage.

Drinking:  With Johnny, and maybe one or two other boys, pass the canteen around the
>way you’ve seen in movies.  Accuse the others of hogging it even though when it’s your
turn you’re just miming swallowing.  Offer a few tasting notes like, Damn, this is good

Conversing:  Talk about the girls that you’re supposed to like.  Talk about who might be
willing to buy cigarettes for you.  Talk about how much you like girls and smoking.  Talk
about how much you like wine, and how you drink it all the time at home.

Acting:  Once it gets late enough, stop pretending to drink and move on to the claim of
being drunk.  Put your hand up when the canteen comes near and say, I’ve had way more
than my share.  Johnny can have the rest. Put your head back. Close your eyes. Sway
and smile slightly like you hear a great song in your head.  Pretend to doze.  After a
while, say, I’m so wasted. I need to go home.  Go inside, make popcorn and then ask a
parent if you can have some.  Watch a Star Wars episode to try to decide what you’ll be
for Halloween.

A faculty member at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts, Joseph Mills holds an endowed chair, the Susan Burress Wall Distinguished Professorship in the Humanities.  He has published five collections of poetry with Press 53, including one on wine called Angels, Thieves, and Winemakers. More information about his work is available at www.josephrobertmills.com and he blogs somewhat regularly at www.josephrobertmills.blogspot.com.