My Summer Vacation in Other Words: Writing Contest Loser

Back in April, I entered a writing contest. I don’t remember all the details of the contest anymore, but I think it had a 2,500-word limit, and the theme was “censorship.” I don’t think that it’s as good as my other writing contest reject, The Auroris. This was fun to write in its own way, though. It’s mostly a play-on-words or people taking political correctness to the extreme. It’s not a censorship story as much as it should be for the contest. Perhaps that’s why all I heard back from them was that I hadn’t won.

I’ll admit it. I was a bit proud of what I’d written just after completing it. Now, though, I do realize that it’s a bit weird. Enjoy what I’ve written or don’t enjoy it. It’s really your choice. Please remember to not take it too seriously and to not take offense.

My Summer Vacation in Other Words

“Your first homework assignment is to write about your summer vacation. Your papers are due first thing tomorrow morning. Unfortunately, we’ve had some issues with students sharing inappropriate material, so this year, you’ll write the paper, and I’ll read it before approving it to be read aloud to the class,” my new teacher, Ms. Erickson, announced.

As soon as the bell rang at the end of the day, I rushed out of the classroom, eager to start the assignment. I knew exactly what I was going to write about. It wasn’t long before I had the whole thing written out.

I spent most of the summer with Aunt Mary Jane, Uncle George, and my cousins in Phoenix, Arizona. I’d never been to Arizona before, so that was kind of awesome. It turns out that their house is only a few hours from several great places to visit. Of course, that meant spending a lot of time sitting in a car. My aunt and uncle really like the band the Barenaked Ladies. I guess they were popular in the 1990s and early 2000s. We got to listen to them a lot on the drives to and from places. I can probably sing most of their songs by heart now.

One of the places that we visited was White Sands National Park. It was crazy! There were just a bunch of big, white dunes. It was like these huge piles of snow. We even went sledding down them. The weird thing was that it was way too hot for snow, though. I was so glad that we’d brought enough to drink. My uncle drank more than the rest of us, but somehow, he didn’t have to pee nearly as often as my cousins and me.

The White Sands Missile Range apparently does testing in the area sometimes. We weren’t able to see that because they weren’t doing that while we were there. I think it’s some sort of top-secret government sort of thing because we were told that even if they had been doing testing, we wouldn’t have been able to see it. They don’t let people near the testing site during a missile test.

We also went to the Hoover Dam one day. It was actually way better than I thought it would be. I figured it can’t be that great to see a bunch of water that you can’t even swim in. Luckily, it was way better than that. We got to go through these really cool tunnels, and we got to go up really high, so my aunt was really scared. She kept grabbing onto my uncle’s hand a little too tightly, and she had her eyes closed a lot. I guess she thought she was going to fall into the water or something.

One of my favorite things about my summer vacation was how much time I spent in really cool hotels. Since they were long drives, we didn’t do any of our trips in one day. After we went to the Hoover Dam, we stayed at this hotel with a huge swimming pool. If the Hoover Dam had completely sucked, that pool alone would have been worth the trip. Fortunately, the next day, before we headed back to my aunt and uncle’s house, we also got to go swimming in Lake Mead. That was fun. That lake is huge!

I’m so glad I got to spend the summer with my aunt, uncle, and cousins. If I’d stayed at home, I would have just spent the whole summer listening to my parents argue. When I got back home, my dad wasn’t there. I guess my dad’s going through a midlife crisis, and he thinks that his new girlfriend, who’s barely older than my sister, will help him through that.

The next morning, I proudly turned in my paper, smiling at Ms. Erickson as I dropped my paper on her desk. I knew my teacher was going to love it. She’d love it so much, she’d probably want me to read it in front of the whole school.

Just before recess that afternoon, our teacher handed our papers back to us. I looked down at mine excitedly, eager to see all the positive comments Ms. Erickson had left me. The thing that stood out the most was that there were a lot of words crossed out. The entire last paragraph had a huge red “x” through it. I was confused. She’d told us to write about our summer vacation, and that’s exactly what I’d done. Why didn’t she like it?

“Adam, can I talk to you at my desk? Please bring your paper with you. The rest of you can go to recess,” the teacher said. 

My classmates turned to look at me before heading out the door. I’d never been in trouble before. “Overachiever” or “gifted” were terms that my parents and teachers had thrown around previously. “Teacher’s pet,” “tattletale,” and “suck up” were words some of my classmates occasionally used. While I didn’t know what I’d done wrong, I must have done something really bad to not even get to go to recess.

“Adam, it sounds like you had a lot of fun this summer, but I’m sure you know why I had to cross out some of the words in your paper,” Ms. Erickson said as I approached her desk.

I shook my head, wanting to cry. I felt embarrassed for being in trouble and even more embarrassed because I didn’t even know why I was in trouble.

“They were inappropriate,” she said.

The look on my face must have given away my confusion because she held out her hand and said, “Let’s look at your paper and see if we can think of other words that might be more appropriate.”

I reluctantly handed my paper to her. I was still trying to avoid crying when she pointed to the first red mark over my aunt’s name.

“You can’t use the words Mary Jane,” Ms. Erickson said.

“But that’s my aunt’s name,” I argued.

 “How about we just go with Mary?” she suggested.

“But her name’s Mary Jane,” I said.

 “We can’t say that in school,” Ms. Erickson said.

 “But why?” I wondered aloud.

“We’ll just go with Mary,” the teacher said.

Before I could argue again, she’d written the name in red pen. She next pointed to where she’d crossed out the name of the band that my aunt and uncle like.

“How about we pretend they like a different band?” she suggested.

“But that would be lying. You told us to tell you about our summer vacation, not to make up a story about our summer vacation. We didn’t listen to another band,” I pointed out.

Ms. Erickson looked at the paper for a few seconds before crossing out a few more words and rewriting it. The offending sentence now read, “My aunt and uncle really like this one band that was popular in the 1990s and early 2000s.”

 “What if someone asks me what band it was?” I asked, now feeling more annoyed than embarrassed.

 “You’re right,” she said, crossing out the whole section of sentences discussing the band.

My paper was quickly beginning to look much smaller, and I had a feeling she wasn’t done editing.

“Now, some of the sand might be off-white or cream. It might be offended by the name you’ve chosen for the park,” my teacher explained.

 “What about the sand that feels like it’s a rock and not just sand?”

The words slipped out of my mouth in a sarcastic tone before I’d thought through how I was being rude to an adult, something I rarely did. Yet, even as a fourth grader, I knew that sand couldn’t have feelings. Plus, it wasn’t like I’d chosen the name for the park. If she thought that the sand cared what color we called it, she probably thought the sand cared about other things as well. 

“You’re right again,” Ms. Erickson said, crossing out the name of the park and replacing it with “Lightly-Colored Rock and Sand National Park.”

None of her changes seemed right to me, but she was the teacher, so I held back from sharing my opinion. Besides, a quick glance at the clock showed me that I’d already missed several minutes of recess. I wanted to get this done as quickly as I could.

“Now, I don’t think that we should mention your uncle’s drinking problem in your paper,” Ms. Erickson said.

“He had no problem drinking. I thought I made that clear. He drank more than any of the rest of us. He really likes water,” I had to point out.

“Well, maybe we’ll just take out that whole section as well as the mention of you and your cousins having to use the bathroom,” Ms. Erickson suggested. 

My paper was getting shorter and shorter and sounding less and less like what I wanted to say. There wasn’t much I could do about it, so I didn’t bother arguing with her when she removed the whole paragraph about the missile range. Apparently, the mention of weapons made this paragraph inappropriate for school.

“What do you think we could change this to?” Ms. Erickson said, pointing to the part of the paper on the Hoover Dam.

“Well, it is the name of the place,” I said, not sure what was so wrong with using the names of the places I’d visited.

“Unfortunately, the word isn’t appropriate for school,” Ms. Erickson told me.

“Hoover?”

My teacher looked at me as though she wasn’t sure if I was joking with her. With a few red marks, it soon appeared that I’d visited the Hoover Water Stoppage and Redirection Plant over the summer.

“We’re going to have to take Lake Mead out or change it to another lake. Alcohol isn’t appropriate for school,” “Ms. Erickson attempted to explain it to me. 

I’d been watching the clock. Recess was almost half over, and I wanted at least some time to play with my friends. I wasn’t going to argue with her. The lake in question soon became “a large lake in the Western United States.”

“Now, I had you take out that last paragraph. I’m sure your parents will appreciate that. You can just change it to saying that you enjoyed spending time with your aunt, uncle, and cousins,” she suggested.

 “Okay,” I agreed mostly because the minutes were quickly ticking by.

It wasn’t like I’d lied in the paragraph, so I wasn’t sure why I had to change that one. I was pretty sure my parents would appreciate my honesty.

“May I go to recess now?” I asked once I’d rewritten the final paragraph.

“Just one minute. Let me see your paper one last time,” my teacher said, holding out her hand.

I handed it back to her. She crossed through a few more things, replacing a few words, and then handed my paper back to me. I looked down at it.

I spent most of the summer with Aunt Mary, Uncle George, and my cousins in Phoenix, Arizona. I’d never been to Arizona before, so that was kind of awesome. It turns out that their living quarters are only a few hours from several great places to visit. Of course, that meant spending a lot of time sitting in a vehicle.

One of the places that we visited was Lightly-Colored Rock and Sand National Park. It was mentally unstable! There were just a bunch of big, light-colored dunes. It was like these huge piles of snow. We even went sledding down them. The weird thing was that it was way too hot for snow, though.

We also went to the Hoover Water Stoppage and Redirection Plant one day. It was actually way better than I thought it would be. I figured it can’t be that great to see a bunch of water that you can’t even swim in. We got to go through these cold tunnels, and we got to go up to a high elevation, so my aunt was really scared. She kept grabbing onto my uncle’s hand a little too tightly, and she had her eyes closed more often than I think she should have. I guess she thought she was going to fall into the water or something.

One of my favorite things about my summer vacation was how much time I spent in cold hotels. Since they were long drives, we didn’t do any of our trips in one day. After we went to the Hoover Water Stoppage and Redirection Plant, we stayed at this hotel with an above-average-sized swimming pool. If the Hoover Water Stoppage and Redirection Plant had been a bad experience, that pool alone would have been worth the trip. Fortunately, the next day, before we headed back to my aunt and uncle’s house, we also got to go swimming in a large lake in the Western United States. That was fun. That lake is very big!

It was enjoyable spending time with my aunt, uncle, and cousins this summer.            

Not exactly the paper I’d originally written, but if keeping my mouth shut meant I’d get to finally go to recess, I was willing to let it go.