Kits

My 06-07 NCTE Professional Resources catalog arrived in the mail yesterday.
I leafed through it, giving it a thorough looky-loo, and while I was curious to
find more kits than ever before, here are a few of the literacy education kits I
did not find. Maybe next year.

  • Soup of Soups Recipe Writing Kit: Consists of 35 plastic spoons, a dried
    leg bone from an unidentified farm animal, a cube of bullion, dehydrated
    carrot flakes, and a stack of Country-classic Style Aunt Bonnie Recipe Cards
    (blank).
  • What In the Heck Were You Thinking Kit: Inside you’ll find a small
    glassine envelope filled with quick-forget dust, which, when you cast it into
    the air induces such raucous fits of sneezing that everyone in the class will
    fail to recall the wrong-headed lesson you danced through on the previous day.
    Includes a set of handouts for fill-in-the-blank haiku.
  • Remove-A-Tongue Kit: Face it, during the winter months students sometimes
    put their tongues to the metal poles at recess. Minimize the trauma and
    embarrassment with this kit. Contents: a Dixie cup for filling with warm,
    salted water.
  • Singing Aloud Absent Musical Inclination Kit: Cochlea-numbing eardrops.
  • Graffiti Paintball Kit: Contains all of the makings for splattering
    miscellaneous verbiage on the school grounds. Also includes
    official-looking invitations to distract up to three administrators with a
    "lunch away," and two sets of stencils (12" and 28").
  • Testing Your Shakespeare Professor’s Coffee Mug Contents for Traces of
    Liquor Kit: Basically, it’s a miniature chemistry lab. Results may take up to
    ten days to materialize; be patient and continue studying your Lear in the
    meantime.
  • Whatnot and Detritus Kit: Ships overnight from the Jasper County
    Landfill. No two Mystery Kits are quite the same, guaranteed.
  • Lame Skit Kit: Two peacock feathers and a Julie Andrews audition cassette
    tape. Cassette tape player not included.
  • Time to Fill Friday Afternoon Roar For

    John Kitna
    Kit:
    One
    inflatable Lions fan helmet and a package of 1000 thumb tacks. (Available only
    in SE Michigan.) Going fast! The first fifty orders include a free autographed
    Charles Rogers poster.
  • Retired Mobile Devices Sandbox Kit: One 60G iPod with a dead battery, a
    Nintendo Gameboy and two cell phones along with a twenty pound bag of Malibu
    sand, and an instructional guide.