In elementary schools, I participated in Odyssey of the Mind. If pressed to explain it with words, it most closely resembles an acid flashback, or a very happy form of PTSD. Think: me in a carrot costume, blood cells inside the human body made from plates and paper mache, a giant Hershey’s bar spouting smoke, fracture fairy tales, me as a giant sock – add in singing and a childish lack of inhibitions, and a robot that WE  BUILT in fifth grade.

Could a picture better describe it?

Yeah, there we go.

I found myself humming, “Achy Breaky Heart,” a song we used in one of our skits.  All I remember is dressing up like a penguin and singing “Achy Breaky Heart” with some minor zoologically appropriate changes – Don’t break my heart, my achy breaky heart, I just don’t think I’d understand. But if you break my heart, my achy breaky heart, I can’t get my fish out of the sea. I don’t know the lyrics to the actual song, just that version.. I don’t want to know, either – because no country music star can top three second graders dressed as penguins performing the song in front of a bunch of confused adults in some Midwestern high school classroom.