First Grade Feeds the Hungry Thing

Somehow I ended up with the only existing record of Mrs. Brandli's class' attempts to feed the Hungry Thing. Well for 1990 anyway. I'm sure this lesson was repeated until her retirement, but I can guarantee that all subsequent classes would be considered street trash in comparison with our glorious body of work.

If you're wondering (and I know you are), this is the Hungry Thing and he's resting on a set of sheets that were just changed for the first time in almost two months:


He's your average blue blob and of course, as all blue blobs are, he's a dead beat looking for a hand out. Worse, he's trying to take advantage of seven-year-olds and Mrs. Brandli is encouraging it.

Just look at his smug face:

What kind of blob gets to be 500 lbs. by being hungry? And on top of that, is hungry with a smile? The kind of blob that knows how to work the system for a hand out that isn't his.

But who am I kidding? I'm in favor of universal healthcare...and now we know why!

So, brainwashing adolescents with liberal propaganda aside, when the Hungry Thing came to Hillcrest Elementary School, he wanted one thing only. No foreplay, right to business. "Give me what's in your damn lunch boxes or I'm shoving my blue toes in your mouth!" Or at least that's what I would have said if I were a hungry blue beast with only 20 first graders and an senior citizen first grade teacher standing between me and piles of food.

But this Hungry Thing was nicer than me, so he showed up with a smile and politely said...actually he didn't say anything. Mrs. Brandli wrote that he just showed us his sign. Maybe blue blobs are genetically predisposed to vocal chord diseases.

So like good little boys and girls, we did all we could to please this stranger who was in need of our assistance. Everyone made something, and just in case he wasn't as nice as he seemed, we made him every kind of food imaginable. Breakfast, lunch, dinner, dessert, sides - he got it all. Carrots, ice cream, fish, pizza, cake, cupcakes, spinach, hot dogs and popcorn.

He also got some pudding on a nice red and black tablecloth,


a bowl full of eggs,

a peanut butter-less PB&J,


grenades and/or pineapples,


and a muffin holding a rifle and weeping into a puddle...I'm sorry, I read that wrong. This one's pancakes.


The kid that picked rice didn't really leave himself much to work with. He probably loved Uncle Ben's and asked his mom to make it every night, but I doubt he considered what a struggle it would be to adequately capture rice's image via crayon. He should have just left the page blank and said it was a close-up.


My personal favorite is the mix of blue and brown cookies. Shouldn't Nabisco have already come out with something like this? I'm betting they'd fly off the shelves.


There was also a writing aspect involved in feeding the Hungry Thing that went like this:

I'll feed him fryanide
Sounds like myanide
I mean cyanide

There was some purpose to it, but I can't figure out what it was. It sounds like a rhyming lesson, but aren't you past rhyming by first grade? Rhyming seems like a pre-school and kindergarten thing. Where's The Witch when you need her? She could help me out with this one.

The kid that made hot dogs originally tried to feed the Hungry Thing pot pogs and wot wogs. Still cracks me up to this day.

My entry was decidedly middle of the road. No bouillabaisse, no ratatouille, no sloppy joes. I went with your standard cereal. It gets the job done, but it's not very exciting. However, the Hungry Thing did get to eat using a massive black spoon out of a see-through bowl on a levitating table.


On second thought, I see some brown milk, so maybe I was thinking cocoa puffs. That doesn't make much sense though because I'm not a fan of cocoa puffs. We'll just say it is to snazz up my two-steps-up-from-bottom-of-the-barrel effort.

So finally, after 17 meals, the Hungry Thing decided that he'd had enough. He even got a stomachache according to Mrs. Brandli, but he didn't let it show as he smiled and wrote us a


You know, the Hungry Thing has got some pretty good dental hygiene for being in such desperate straits. Those are some awfully white teeth for someone who goes around begging first graders to cook for him.

Wait a minute. Wait a goddamn minute. Did anyone else see this? I just noticed it. Look at the chain holding up his sign. Solid gold. What a swindling bastard.

Try looking at his face now and see if you think it's grateful. His sign might as well say "You got took, bitches!"

I want my mereal back.