Klutz Quotes

Huh," Leo said. "Well, if you ever get off this island and want a job, let me know. You're not a total klutz." She smirked. "A job, eh?" Making things in your forge?" "Nah, we could start our own shop," Leo said, surprising himself. Starting a machine shop had always been one of his dreams, but he'd never told anyone about it. "Leo and Calypso's Garage: Auto Repair and Mechanical Monsters.

People love to admit they have bad handwriting or that they can't do math. And they will readily admit to being awkward: 'I'm such a klutz!' But they will never admit to having a poor sense of humor or being a bad driver.

It sucks to be a klutz on land and a klutz in the water.

Frank Zhang: lumbering klutz, child of Mars, part-time pachyderm.

Every single person is a fool, insane, a failure, or a bad person to at least ten people.

You are not a fool,” he whispered. “You can never be a fool. You’re total class from top to toe. You’re also a klutz. Own that, baby, because it’s cute and because it’s you. If you learn to accept yourself just as you are, learn to laugh at your quirks instead of hating them, show the world all that’s you without tryin’ to hide things that are not even a little unattractive, that makes you more attractive. What you got is a fuckuva lot. You own all of it and let it all hang out, you’ll go off-the-charts.

It's been about six months since I've had something in a cast. Kids at school laugh and call me a klutz. This girl Charlotte carries my books. My parents are baffled. Will cries. Jesse keeps getting sick. You're broken, and you're fixed. And you're better,

And you’re a grey sprinkle on a rainbow cupcake!” “What?

Why is it that at the very moment I need to appear graceful I stumble and fall like a klutz, as though this scene had never played through my mind differently a million times?

Our Klutz clangs into Stop signs while riding a bike, and knocks over giant displays of expensive fine china. Despite being five foot nine and weighing 110 pounds, she is basically like a drunk buffalo who has never been a part of human society. But Fred Tom loves her anyway.

The woman may be a biomedical engineer, but I begin to think that she is a certifiable idiot.

Thats the first rule of being a kid

Attention is never a good thing, as any other accident-prone klutz would agree. No one wants a spotlight when they’re likely to fall on their face.

I’m not a klutz and I’m not being stupid, ” he said

Laughter bubbled up before I could stop it. I was a human fly zapper. “Bring it on, you little swamp angels!” My voice was filled with malicious glee. I cackled under my breath each time another little drill-faced bug got the shock of a lifetime.

Thievery is a time-honored profession, my girl. Not to be confused with these hooligans who mug people on the street, or bloodthirsty klutzes who burst into banks, guns blazing. We’re discriminating. We’re romantic.” His voice rose in passion. “We’re artists

Saul had gained his six-foot frame at sixteen, but his muscles didn’t arrive until his early twenties. Between those lost years, he was a gangly, uncoordinated klutz. He was told that he could improve his dancing by watching himself in the mirror. He tried. What he saw was so repulsive that he resolved never to inflict himself on a dance partner. These days, Saul hid those memories behind weight lifting and jogging. His new athletic physique hid his aimless decade as an outsider, an odd and lonely kid--as he remembered it.

If my life were a series, it would take more than a single book for him to make it up to me.

Like their ancestors, Louise and her parents klutzed away their days.

However, to the amazement of their neighbors, the Klutzes never got seriously hurt. As clumsy as they were, the Klutzes were twice that lucky!

Let’s just say that on my way down here, I embraced my inner klutz.

Attention is never a good thing, as any other accident-prone klutz would agree.

He was no prince or hero. He was a lactose-intolerant klutz, who couldn’t even protect his friend from getting kidnapped by wheat.

We had to walk a million hundred miles back to class in single file. Everybody was being really quiet. Nobody wanted to get in trouble with Mr. Klutz. I looked around for Mr. Granite, but I couldn’t find him.

He couldn’t read her expression. He was afraid he’d finally done something so weird that she’d never want to be around him again. Frank Zhang: lumbering klutz, child of Mars, part-time pachyderm. Then she kissed him—a real kiss on the lips, much better than the kind of kiss she’d given Percy on the airplane.

Life sucks sometimes, but the detours make it interesting, don’t you think?

Am I as pathetic as I sound?” I demanded. “The truth will hurt.

The last time I had moved this fast was when I beat out all the other contenders on the night of my conception.

I always knew I would die trying to pet something I shouldn’t.

I was surrounded by idiots… and I was their leader.

You can never be a fool. You’re total class from top to toe. You’re also a klutz. Own that, baby, because it’s cute and because it’s you. If you learn to accept yourself just as you are, learn to laugh at your quirks instead of hating them, show the world all that’s you without tryin’ to hide things that are not even a little unattractive, that makes you more attractive. What you got is a fuckuva lot. You own all of it and let it all hang out, you’ll go off-the-charts.

But, anyway, once Great-grandma snuffed it, Granddad started going dancing again. That was how you got laid back in the day, and he used to totally rock at it but then the war happened, and then he was married and stuff, so it was like this amazing thing for him to suddenly have dancing again. Like a bit of lostness coming back to him after all these years. And he taught me. Really patiently because I’m a bit of a klutz. He didn’t actually say it was for getting laid (though I’m telling you the implication was there). He said it was how a gentleman wins a lady’s heart. An important life skill. And so I told him. I said, “Does it still work if a gentleman wants to win a gentleman’s heart?” He was quiet a moment. And my own heart was like thudump-thudump-thudump. To the rhythm of ohfuck-ohfuck-ohfuck. And then Granddad said, “Definitely.

He walked me to the door--the same one to which I’d been escorted many times before by pimply high school boys and a few miscellaneous suitors along the way. But this time was different. Bigger. I felt it. I wondered for a moment if he felt it, too. That’s when the spike heel of my boot caught itself on a small patch of crumbling mortar on my parents’ redbrick sidewalk. In an instant, I saw my life and any ounce of pride remaining in my soul pass before my eyes as my body lurched forward. I was going to bite it for sure--and right in front of the Marlboro Man. I was an idiot, I told myself, a dork, a klutz of the highest order. I wanted desperately to snap my fingers and magically wind up in Chicago, where I belonged, but my hands were too busy darting in front of my torso, hoping to brace my body from the fall. But someone caught me. Was it an angel? In a way. It was Marlboro Man, whose tough upbringing on a working cattle ranch had produced the quick reflexes necessary to save me, his uncoordinated date, from certain wipeout. Once the danger was over, I laughed from nervous embarrassment. Marlboro Man chuckled gently. He was still holding my arms, in the same strong cowboy grip he’d used to rescue me moments earlier. Where were my knees? They were no longer part of my anatomy. I looked at Marlboro Man. He wasn’t chuckling anymore. He was standing right in front of me…and he was still holding my arms.

Then there was one girl I met who would invent stories for why she always had bandages around her arms. She’d claim she was attacked by a cat, fell on a piece of glass in the playground, or sprained her wrist playing netball. She told me that every day, she’d make sure she fell over in front of everyone, just so she could develop a reputation for being a klutz and thereby make her injuries seem more believable. She was 12 years old.

I guess Mr. Klutz will have to get another sub for our class,” said Emily.

Nooooooooo!” “Don’t gooooooooo!” As much as I hate to use the L word, we all love Mr. Granite. We didn’t want him to leave. “Mr. Granite has been teaching at our school for a long time,” said Mr. Klutz to the aliens. “Why are you suddenly showing up now?” Good question. That’s why Mr. Klutz is the principal. “We do apologize for our lateness,” said one of the Mr. Granites.

You don’t have to have life all figured out. In fact, I plan to never have it figured out. It’s what keeps it fun.

The sugar content in this cereal’s too high for Willie. You know the doctor said sugar’s bad for him. No wonder he ends up under the teacher’s desk. Can’t you cook him a proper breakfast, Judy? Oatmeal and toast and scrambled eggs, that’s what he needs.” “He’s not going to lift bricks, Harold.” “Mental exercise uses up calories, too--which is why I eat an egg and an English muffin before going to work.” As mom was agreeing that Dad always did eat sensibly, Willie looked up from pouring his juice and saw through the kitchen window that his bus was rounding the corner. Looking down, he saw he’d poured a puddle that was dripping onto the floor. Dad noticed, of course. Dad noticed everything. “Willie, you klutz! Now look what you’ve done.” “I’ve gotta go,” Willie said. “Not before you eat your breakfast.” “Then I’ll miss the bus.” Booboo ambled into the kitchen, wagged a greeting to everyone, and barked to be let out. Willie moved to open the door for him. “Hold it right there!” Dad said. He probably thought Willie meant to leave, too. “You sit down and eat your cereal. After you mop up the juice. QUIET, BOOBOO!” Booboo yipped pathetically as if asking what he’d done wrong. Mom slipped over to the door. “The dog has to go out, Harold,” she said. “Unless you want him to do his business on the floor?” As if on command, Booboo squatted and made a second puddle. “I thought he got up pretty early for him,” Willie said. “I guess he had to go.” Willie’s bus driver waited for him a few seconds and then took off. “I missed my bus,” Willie said. He got the squeegee mop out to clean up both accidents. Dad was holding his head. “Do you have a headache, Dad?” Willie asked.

Do you have a dungeon down in the basement where you put the bad kids?” I asked. “Actually, the dungeon is on the third floor,” Principal Klutz replied. Nobody laughed this time. He quickly told us that he was just making a joke and that he didn’t even have a dungeon at all. Principal Klutz must have felt bad that we didn’t think his joke was funny, because he invited us all up to the front of the room to touch his bald head. We did, and that

He can be more bumble bee than bear sometimes, though.” “What do you mean?” asked Meredith, confused. “Think about it: bumble bees work all day, bump into things left and right, they’re total klutzes, and they’re hard to understand, they just go buzz, buzz, buzz,” joked Scott.

Then Mr. Klutz got up, brushed himself off, and walked up the front steps, like it was totally normal for a principal to skateboard to school and crash headfirst into the bushes. Mr. Klutz is nuts!

I was scared. I had never been to the principal’s office before.

So, when I came to write science-fiction novels, I came lugging this great heavy sack of stuff, my carrier bag full of wimps and klutzes, and tiny grains of things smaller than a mustard seed, and intricately woven nets which when laboriously unknotted are seen to contain one blue pebble, an imperturbably functioning chronometer telling the time on another world, and a mouse’s skull; full of beginnings without ends, of initiations, of losses, of transformations and translations, and far more tricks than conflicts, far fewer triumphs than snares and delusions; full of space ships that get stuck, missions that fail, and people who don’t understand.

This has been attributed co-Samuel Johnson. He said, in substance, that if an academic maintains in place an ignorance that can be easily removed with a little work, the conduct of the academic amounts to treachery. 'that was his word, "treachery." You can see why I love this stuff. He saves you have a duty if you're an academic to be as little of a klutz as you can possibly be, and, therefore, you have gotta keep grinding out of your system as much removable ignorance as you can remove.

51. Do you have a really hard time tolerating frustration? 52. Are you restless without “action” in your life? 53. Do you have a hard time reading a book all the way through? 54. Do you regularly break rules or minor laws rather than put up with the frustration of obeying them? 55. Are you beset by irrational worries? 56. Do you frequently make letter or number reversals? 57. Have you been the driver and at fault in more than four car accidents? 58. Do you handle money erratically? 59. Are you a gung-ho, go-for-it sort of person? 60. Do you find that structure and routine are both rare in your life and soothing when you find them? 61. Have you been divorced more than once? 62. Do you struggle to maintain self-esteem? 63. Do you have poor hand-eye coordination? 64. As a kid, were you a bit of a klutz at sports? 65. Have you changed jobs a lot? 66. Are you a maverick? 67. Are memos virtually impossible for you to read or write? 68. Do you find it almost impossible to keep an updated address book, phone book, or Rolodex? 69. Are you the life of the party one day and hangdog the next? 70. Given an unexpected chunk of free time, do you often find that you don’t use it well or get depressed during it? 71. Are you more creative or imaginative than most people? 72. Is paying attention or staying tuned in a chronic problem for you? 73. Do you work best in short spurts? 74. Do you let the bank balance your checkbook? 75. Are you usually eager to try something new?

You want to give the biggest klutz who ever walked the earth a sailboat? I might run over someone." "Just make sure they deserve it," he answered without missing a beat.

He had no hair at all! I mean none! His head looked like a giant egg. When Principal Klutz was all done telling us the rules of the school, he asked if anybody had any questions about what he had said. “Did all your hair fall out of your head,” I asked, “or did you cut it off?” Everybody laughed, even though I didn’t say anything funny. Miss Daisy looked at me with a mean face. “Actually, it was both,” Principal Klutz replied with a chuckle. “Almost all of my hair fell out on its own, so I decided to shave the rest of it off.

Today I didn’t actually ski on anything other than the bunny slope, but at least I graduated from ski class.” She jerked her thumb at Leah. “Klutz over here has to take the class again tomorrow.” Leah wiggled her eyebrows, not at all offended. “You bet. Ian is such a hottie. He’s Australian and has the most delicious accent. I adore it. He promised to give me private lessons tomorrow if I don’t do any better.” She leaned forward and whispered, “I won’t do any better tomorrow.” “He’s that hot, huh?” “His presence melts snow.

Anne Wardrop, the poor klutz, had suffered a bona fide nervous breakdown precipitated by a really terrifying laughing jag during the Verdi Requiem at St. Bartholomew’s.

Klutz Press.

You are American,” he says, as if I’m a mythical creature. I nod. “Yes. And, uh, we have different dances where I come from.” “Can you show us one?” The second boy, a dark-haired kid, steps forward, looking intrigued. I stifle a laugh. “Oh, uh, no. I’m a horrible dancer.” “Please?” the redheaded boy asks. “I have never seen an American dance.” I just laughed at them thirty seconds ago. Wouldn’t that make me mean if I just blow them off now? “I doubt you’d want to see these dances,” I say, stalling. I feel kind of bad. But I really can’t dance. I’ll make a fool of myself. “Oh, but I do. Most certainly.” “Oh.” Well, then. I could try, right? Just some tiny little thing? But what do I share? MC Hammer? The Running Man? The Electric Slide? A little Macarena? “Uh,” I say, stepping forward. “How about, um, the Robot?” “The Robot?” the two boys ask in unison. Did the word robot even exist in 1815? “Yeah. You, uh, hold your arms out like this,” I say, demonstrating the proper way to stand like a scarecrow. I can’t believe I’m doing this. “And then relax your elbows and let your hands swing. Like this.” I’m really not doing it well, but by the way their eyes widen, you’d think I just did a full-on pop-and-lock routine with Justin Timberlake. They mimic my maneuver, making it look effortless. The drummer guy stands up and gets in on the action, swinging his arms freely. The guy’s better than me after a two-second demo. Figures. “Okay, then, uh, you sort of walk and you try to make everything look stiff and, uh, unnatural. Like this.” I show him my best robotic walk, my arms mechanical in their movements. The two boys and the drummer immediately copy me, and by the time they’ve taken four or five steps, they seriously look like robots. In no time they’re improvising, and their laughter trickles up toward the rafters of the barn. Yeah. That’s my cue to leave before inspiration strikes and I try to show them how to break-dance but only succeed in breaking my neck. I slip out of the barn unnoticed, grinning to myself as I walk the gravel path back toward the house, my skirts brushing the dirt. At least somewhere, I’m not Callie the Klutz. Even if it’s just some smelly old barn. There’s hope for me after all.

Actually that kind of makes me like him more. Fine. I won’t touch the klutz. To tell you the truth I’m kind of on Murdoch’s side here. If she’s an operative, I’ll eat some of Li’s haggis.” Liam shook his head. “Damn me, girl, but we’re going to have to give you a geography lesson. I’m bloody Irish not Scots. Why da fuck would I eat haggis?” She shrugged. “They all sound the same to me.

Principal Klutz seemed nice, but a lot of people seem nice when you first meet them. Then later you find out that they are evil villains who plan to take over the world.

When the blood rushes to my head, it helps me think.” Well, I know that blood rushing to your head doesn’t help you grow hair, because Mr. Klutz had no hair on his head at all. He was bald as a balloon.

You’re not a klutz. I know you wear long pants and sweaters to cover it up. I’m not stupid, you know.

What a cool, wacky guy Mr. Klutz is! He is the coolest principal in the history of the world. 7 Teacher for a Day The news about the big chocolate party blew through the school like a hurricane.

Because men often feel like romantic klutzes, they are incredibly sensitive to criticism or teasing. One man said flatly, “You tease me about not quite getting the candlelight dinner right, that’s it—it’ll be five years before I try it again.

Help me to trans form myself into a perfect great alembic and into a perfect great centrifage-perfect like all these financial markets that taunt me and which, unlike me, do not have mouths to feed, to care for and to educate." Everyone agrees on the remedy. 'Above all, modernity is a diet: keep on slimming down! Tell your poor that they are not exploited but are losers, klutzes, and that some civil societies are far less lenient. . . bird societies, for example:The highest branches are reserved for the strongest, who shit as they wish upon occupants of lower branches .Imagine those a t the bottom who harvest the whole lot !There is even a bit of social mobility: some individuals on the second branch manage to hoist themselves up to the first, and so on. Quite a lesson for this bunch of klutzes !

Now, it’s apparently cool to be allergic to everything except kale and water.

How did I not know he was gay? Come to think of it—how did you not know he was gay?” “It wasn’t like he did anything flamboyant. And the guy is into sports.

Straw

So I feel sorry for her. She really cares about that klutz in the tin can.

Mr. Klutz,

Vee used you like a bat to hit a bunch of monkeys, and you’re mocking me for missing a step?” Chi’s head tipped to the side. “There’s a difference between a teammate and spouse betraying you in a horrible, unforgiveable way and just being such a klutz that you can’t manage a set of stairs.

You may not believe this,” he told me, “but I was a boy once.” “Just once?” I asked. “I’m a boy all the time.

Excuse me,” said Andrea, raising her hand to ruin everybody’s fun like always.

I think that only students who do math problems should be allowed to come to the chocolate party,” said Andrea. “Could you possibly be any more boring?” I asked her.

The eraser!” I said. “It’s smaller and lighter, so it will fall faster. Just like small, light kids run faster than big, heavy kids.

But if we stop learning stuff,” I protested, “we’ll get dumber.” “In your case,” Andrea told me, “that would be impossible.

Murderous Miriam Webster had followed me into the passenger cabin. I thought it was moths that had an unhealthy addiction to flames.  “Don’t come any closer!” I screamed since clearly the spider understood English and would respect my boundaries.  I was wrong. Maybe the spider spoke Spanish or French, because the not-so-itsy-bitsy-spider rushed at me, crossing boundaries like it was the spider’s life purpose.

Booooooooo!” the guys and me started booing. “Wait a minute,” said Mr. Klutz. “The wining school will get prizes.” “Oooooh!” everybody ooooohed, because winning prizes is cool. And it would be great to beat those Dirk dorks again. “There will be four prizes,” Mr. Klutz told us. “The first prize is bragging rights, of course.” Bragging rights? Who cares? Grown-ups always say you can win bragging rights. But then when we actually brag about something, the grown-ups tell us that bragging isn’t nice and we should stop doing it. I’m not falling for that again. “Booooooooo!” “The second prize is a year’s supply of Porky’s Pork Sausages,” said Mr. Klutz. I like Porky’s Pork Sausages. But every time there’s a contest, they give away Porky’s Pork Sausages. I bet Mr. Klutz has a secret deal with Peter Porky, the guy who owns the Porky’s Pork Sausage company. “Booooooooo!” “I think you’ll like this,” said Mr. Klutz. “The third prize is . . . a trip to DizzyLand.” “Boo—” Wait. WHAT? Did he just say a trip to DizzyLand?

I’m such a klutz.

United

Dumb Miss Daisy and Principal Klutz

the man was Mr. Klutz, the principal of

never to take candy from strangers,

loudspeaker during morning announcements. “Students, there are three more nights to go before vacation,” he told us. “I hate to do this, but if you don’t reach your goal by Friday, the field trip to Water World will be

Mr. Klutz

to run in the halls, and we’re not allowed to chew gum. Stuff like that. But I wasn’t listening very closely because I kept staring at his head. He had no hair at all! I mean none! His head looked like a giant egg. When Principal Klutz was all done telling us the rules of the school, he asked if anybody had any questions about what he had said. “Did all your hair fall out of your head,” I asked, “or did you cut it off?” Everybody laughed, even though I didn’t say anything funny. Miss Daisy looked at me with a mean face. “Actually, it was both,” Principal Klutz replied with a chuckle. “Almost all of my hair fell out on its own, so I decided to shave the rest of it off.

library is the tallest building in the world, because it has the most stories. Mr. Klutz totally doesn’t

The next day there was a sign in front of the school: “Welcome, Ms. LaGrange!” Mr. Klutz was standing at the front door next to a lady I never saw before. Her hair stuck out from under a big chef’s hat, and she was wearing an apron with the words “Make Lunch, Not War” on it. “Ms. LaGrange, this is A.J.,” Mr. Klutz said when I reached the top of the steps. “Maybe you can get him to eat some vegetables.

No,” said Mr. Klutz firmly. “Regular farts do not qualify as a talent.” “That’s not fair!” somebody shouted. “Yeah, if armpit farts are a talent, then real farts should be a talent, too,” said Neil the nude kid. “That’s discrimination against certain kinds of farts!” said Alexia. “And we were taught that discrimination is wrong.” “Yeah!” Everybody started talking about farting and discrimination until Mr. Klutz made the shut-up peace sign again. “Are there any questions that don’t concern farting?” he asked. Emily raised her hand. “What if somebody doesn’t have a talent?” she asked. “Does that mean they can’t be in the talent show?” Mrs. Lane came down off the stage and went over to Emily. “Everybody has talent, sweetie,” she said. “I’m sure y’all can do something that most other people can’t do. For instance, maybe y’all can play the spoons.” Mrs. Lane pulled two spoons out of her pocket and started hitting them against her legs in rhythm. It was cool. “I can’t do that,” said Emily. “Well, maybe y’all can yodel,” said Mrs. Lane. Mrs. Lane started yodeling. It was cool. “I can’t do that either,” said Emily. “Or maybe y’all can turn your eyelids inside out,” Mrs. Lane said. And then she turned her eyelids inside

Sometimes people are awesome to look at but douchebags to talk to—maybe he’s one of those kinds of guys? I need at least forty-eight hours to confirm or deny that.

In your case,” Andrea told me, “that would be impossible.” 12

What is wrong with looking muscular? Muscles are beautiful. Strength is beautiful. Muscle tissue is beautiful. It is metabolically, medically, and philosophically beautiful. Muscles retreat when they’re not used, but they will always come back if you give them good reason. No matter how old you get, your muscles never lose hope. Few cells of the body are as capable as muscle cells are of change and reformation, of achievement and transcendence… Women need muscle, as much as they can muster. They need muscle to shield their light bones, and they need muscle to weather illness. And being strong in a blunt way, a muscleheaded way, is easier than being skilled at a sport. It is a democratic option, open to the klutzes and the latecomers, and women should seize the chance to become cheaply, fowzily strong, because the chance exists, and let’s be honest, we don’t have many. Being strong won’t make you happy or fulfilled, but it’s better to be sullen and strong than sullen and weak

story I ever heard!” Emily said. Then she started

Emma

Meet the New Boss What?! Mr. Klutz was fired? It couldn’t be true! We were all shocked. I thought it was one of those times when something really horrible happens and then it turns out just to be a dream. I saw that in a movie once. But the next morning while we were putting our backpacks away, everybody was talking about what happened. “Dr. Carbles can’t fire Mr. Klutz!” said Michael. “Well, he did,” said Ryan. “But Mr. Klutz is the best principal in the world!” said Neil the nude kid. Neil was right. Everybody loved Mr. Klutz. I was sad. Some kids were crying. Teachers were hugging each other in the hallway and dabbing their eyes with tissues. It was like Mr. Klutz had died. After we pledged the allegiance, our teacher, Miss Daisy, said we should remember the good times we had with Mr. Klutz. “Remember when he got his foot caught at the top of the flagpole and was hanging upside down?” said Ryan. “Remember when he dressed like Santa in the holiday pageant, and he was hanging upside down from his sleigh?” said Michael. “Once I got called to his office, and he was hanging upside down from the ceiling,” I told everybody. “Mr. Klutz sure hangs upside down a lot,” said Emily, who is a big crybaby. It was hard to concentrate on reading and math that morning. We were all thinking about the good old days with Mr. Klutz. When it was time to go to the vomitorium for lunch, we were still talking about him. “They’ll have to get us a new principal,” said Andrea, who

WHAT!? “A million dollars!” I shouted. “A million dollars!!” shouted Alexia. “A million dollars!!!!” shouted Ryan. In case you were wondering, we were all shouting, “A million dollars.” Everybody started yelling and screaming and shrieking and hooting and hollering and generally freaking out. You should have been there! Nobody could believe Ella Mentry was actually giving the school a million dollars. Man, that lady must have a ton of money to be giving away so much of it. No wonder she needs such big checks. There are a lot of zeroes in a million. We gave Mrs. Mentry another standing ovation. Then Mr. Klutz made the shut-up peace sign again and we all got quiet. “We can’t thank you enough, Mrs. Mentry,” he said. “But now we have a problem. What are we going to do with this money?” That’s a problem? If you ask me, a problem is when you have no money at all. “I’ll spend it for you!” shouted our librarian, Mrs. Roopy. Everybody laughed. “Tell you what I’m going to do,” Mr. Klutz said. “We’re going to have a contest to decide what to do with the money.” “Oooooh!” everybody oohed. “Go back to your classrooms and think of some ideas for what we should do with the million dollars,” Mr. Klutz told us. “The class that comes up with

Arlo!” Andrea shouted. “Why did you do that?” “Does there have to be a reason?” Suddenly Mr. Klutz came running into the class. He’s the principal of Ella Mentry School, and he has no hair at all. Most principals polish their shoes, but Mr. Klutz polishes his head.

All-or-nothing thinking is when you see things as only black or white and either-or. For example, if you make a mistake while giving a speech, you think you are a total failure; or if a friend acts distant on the telephone, you believe he or she doesn’t like you anymore. Labeling is an extension of all-or-nothing thinking. When you make a mistake, instead of accepting that you made an error, you label yourself an idiot. If your girlfriend or boyfriend breaks up with you, instead of realizing that he or she doesn’t love you, you call yourself unlovable. Overgeneralizing is basing conclusions on isolated events, then applying them across diverse situations. If you spill a soda, you think, “I’m always a klutz.” If you can’t think of something to say when introduced to someone new, you think, “I never make a good impression.” The tip-off to this type of thinking is use of the word “always” or “never.” Mental filtering is when you remember and dwell on only the negative elements of an event. For instance, after a party, you remember the awkward pauses in conversations, feeling uncomfortable, and forgetting people’s names, while you forget all moments when you had good conversations, introduced yourself to someone new, and when someone paid you a compliment. Discounting the positive is somewhat related to mental filtering. It is when you do something well, such as give a good speech, but make excuses like “It doesn’t count” or “Anyone could have done it” and feel the accomplishment wasn’t good enough. Jumping to conclusions is making negative interpretations about events when there is no evidence to support them. There are generally two forms of jumping to conclusions. In “mind reading,” you believe that someone is reacting negatively to you without checking it out. For instance, if two people stop their conversation when you walk up to them, you assume that they were gossiping about you. In “fortune telling,” you anticipate that things will turn out badly. If you fear taking tests, for example, you always feel that you will fail, even before you start the test. Magnification is exaggerating the importance of problems. For instance, if you don’t do well on a test, you believe you are going to fail the entire semester. Emotional reasoning is when you mistake your emotions for reality. For example, you feel lonely; therefore, you think no one likes you. ”Should” and “shouldn’t” statements are ways of thinking that make you feel that you are never good enough. Even though you do well on a job interview, you think, “I should have said this,” or “I shouldn’t have said that.” Other words that indicate this type of thinking are “ought to” and “have to.” Personalizing the blame is holding yourself responsible for things beyond your control. For instance, you are on your way to study with a group of classmates and you get stuck in traffic. Instead of realizing and accepting that the traffic problem is out of your control, you think you are irresponsible because you are going to be late.

Klutz