A Dan for All Seasons: Childhood Stories: The Deep Sea Battle

Danny O'D age 8

This post is part of a series of my childhood stories.

Ahh a sequel, (to The Monk Battle) I bet you were all waiting with baited breath. This story like the one before was written for extra credit in Mrs. Lynn’s second grade class. Specifically it was written on May 1, 1991. This story was also inspired by an illustration from The Great Waldo Search; however it has far less to do with the original illustration and bears little in common with the source material save for the fact that they both take place under the sea. It is also shorter than the first story, because a paragraph at the time was defined as being ten sentences long and a paragraph was the minimum I had to write to gain the extra credit. I could’ve written more…IF I WAS A SUCKER! Daaammnn!

Note the lack of any sort of battle. I seem to be moving away from plagarism.

THE DEEP SEA BATTLE

by Dan O'Dwyer

Once upon a time, in an ocean by where the monk battel was. There where

a lot of things under the sea. And the things that lived on land

where going to do plan X. Who would know about good old plan X ?

The water things would(I would write a Dum-Dee-Dum-Dum thing but,

I can't write music). So the battel came around the sea. No whon

could get in but,the person who was in power of the mane controll

broke a nail. And scremed so loud she broke the controll.

EEEEEEEEEEEE

TTTTTTTTT HH HH EE

T HH HH EE

T HH HH EEEEEEEEEEEE

T HHHHHHH EE

T HH HH EE

T HH HH EEEEEEEEEEEE

T HH HH

END

Rereading this story now, the plotline is a little (read: a lot) incoherent. In retrospect I should have written a few more sentences explaining what the hell was going on, but that would have diverted valuable cartoon watching time. What is plan X? How would it help the land creatures fight the sea creatures?

As the author I wish I could shed some light on the subject, but I undoubtedly forgot before I was old enough to grow hair in “funny places.” There’s also a strong possibility that I never actually had the details of Plan X figured out; however I can guarantee that if I did have it figured out it undoubtedly involved ninjas, M.C. Hammer, surfers, dinosaurs or some combination thereof.

Plan X?

This is also one of the only stories I’ve ever read that contained music within the narrative, which I think is a nice touch. Unlike the songs in the Lord of the Rings novels which were just fucking stupid. The “music” in this short story is also superior to the music in the LOTR because it’s short, relevant to the story, and not about shoving an elf penis up a hobbit’s ass.

Typical woman

The joke that women freak out when they break a nail seems a little sexist in today’s PC culture. I have since seen the error of my ways and I would like to apologize for this stereotype. Women don’t need to break a nail to flip out; they’ll flip out for any or no reason because they are insane. Glad I could clear that up, but seriously she broke a nail! Get it? Ho ho ho! I slay me.

The end of the story is spelled out quite literally in giant letters, although the reader can’t be quite sure exactly what happened in the story at least they know that the story came to a definite (and sexist) conclusion. I do remember that writing the word “THE” took more time and planning than writing the actual story itself, leading me to give up on writing the word “END” in a similar fashion and instead simply typing the word out.

I wish I could tell you things have gotten a lot better since then, but I wrote this commentary on The Deep Sea Battle a few years ago. Lazy, lazy, lazy. Granted I had a busy week at work, and I’ve got a cold. It took a herculean effort just to post this. I’ll have something brand new for next week.