Every year, University School of Nashville, a K-12 private school, holds The Leaky Pen Contest, a competition in funny-essay-writing. We now officially love this school.
The contest is sponsored by alum Susan Yeagley ’89 (who has a recurring role on Parks and Recreation as Jessica Wicks, the former Miss Pawnee who is now the CEO of Smile, Wave, Walk! Inc., Pawnee’s #1 pageant-training institution) and her husband, comedian Kevin Nealon (of SNL and Weeds).
This year, the topic was “The Art of Apology” (yay!) and the winners were Margaret Rose and Eli Motycka (seen delivering a top-notch freeze-frame high-five here). Both their essays are freeze-frame-high-five-worthy. Margaret’s is written in the voice of a 9-year-old girl being made to write an apology letter to God. (“I am sorry that Jordan and I ate all the communion wafers and that Jordan threw up, which made me throw up. I am sorry I threw up in the baptism pool. Mr. Peters said I ruined the holy water, but communion wafers are also holy, so didn’t I just make the holy water more holy? I am sorry anyway.”) Eli’s more baroque essay discourses upon art, apology and pubic hair. It includes information about the origin of the phrase “the pleasure is all mine,” which we learn began as “the highest compliment one could pay another during the Renaissance…’that’s a top-notch bush.'” GOD, ELI.
Seriously, congrats to both these talented youths. This fall Eli will head off to Brown University and Margaret to NYU.
We apologize if this post makes you feel like an underachiever.
A ha ha ha! These are the best.
They might make good guest bloggers, for when you two go off on vacation together.
I sincerely hope to contain my loud guffaw he next time someone says “the pleasure is all mine…”
“The pleasure was all mine? Oh, I’m terribly sorry. What can I do to make up for it?”
Oh. That was awfully pleasurable.