Clapping Monkey

      Presentation projects stink. Nobody likes them but teachers because they take lots of preparation for the students while all the teacher has to do is sit back and watch students talk. Badly, I might add. Its like whenever anybody goes up front they forget their English and revert to speaking in some forgotten language that involves awkward hand gestures and heavy breathing. And in the end what are the results? A grade and some scattered applause.

     The grade I get. But the applause, the clapping, that's what I don't understand at all.

     A little heads up, I'm sorta weird about wondering why people do what they do. While most people are cheering for their favorite sports team, I'm wondering why people just identify more to a dude in a different color shirt. Or when people enjoy music, I think why does a different arrangements of noises make people happy and remind them of times gone by. I'm weird about stuff like that, I'll be the first to admit it. But I want to bring you in on the weirdness on the thing that just perplexes me the most. That is why we clap.

     Just think about it. Heck, if you are brave and don't mind looking crazy, just sit and clap and look at your hands. Its just so absurd. What was put into our heads as admiration and praise in reality is just a person smacking his hands together. But its not like clapping is some new human fad that I've come to complain about, it could be as old as civilization itself.

     Every culture in the world uses clapping in some way, and history is no different. Clapping was there when the roman slaves fought in Colosseum all the way up to when the Soviets would clap for hours so Stalin wouldn't send them to a death camp. Its one of infants first hand gestures learned to show happiness and pleasure.

     So there must be something about clapping ingrained into the human conscientiousness that goes deeper than I'll ever knew, but too me clapping just comes down to one image. Those little wind up plush monkeys with the mini-cymbals just slapping them together, over and over and over.

     When I take a break from normalcy and step back into my own little world, I can't help but see everyone just sitting around watching the president speak,and as he is pausing every once and a while to wait for the monkeys springs wound down. Waiting for them to see something they like and slap their fins together like a seal.

Arp Arp