Terrible Things

Upon reading this challenge, I knew almost immediately that I was going to try to go it one better. (Or perhaps, “six better”?)

I decided to try to write a song using only words that start with ONE letter. I settled very quickly on the letter “T” -- in part because, with “T,” you get the word “the,” which is a bit of a boon. You also get nine ways to begin words (ta, te, th, ti, to, tr, tu, tw, and ty), which is more than some. Granted, not as many as if you started with “A” -- which would give you the word “and” (a word that I SORELY missed while writing this song), plus the article “an” (you can’t use “a” in a song in which the next word would inevitably start with a vowel) -- but you don’t get NEARLY as many options for prepositional phrases with the letter “A,” so I suspect that trying to do this with “A” would be even harder than trying to do this with “T.”

At any rate, I’m quite pleased with the fact that I was still able to create a cohesive story with no really serious lapses in prosody within these constraints. We’ll see if it’s enough to finally put me through to a Round Four challenge . . .

(And -- for the record -- the kids in this song are TYPES with which I’m well familiar, but not based on any SPECIFIC kids I’ve taught over the past 15 years . . .)

:-)

There’s Timmy --

The troublesome, trash-talking tyke.

There’s Tommy --

The tantruming tot.

There’s Tammy --

The tattletale.

There’s the teacher they torture.

This tells the terrible tale that transpired today . . .

***************************************

Timmy took Tommy’s toy turtle.

Threatened to take Tommy’s

Toy to the trash.

Tommy then took Timmy’s

Tiny Transformer,

Thinking that that’d tempt

Timmy to trade.

Timmy, though, threatened to

Take Tommy’s toy to the

Toilet -- to toss Tommy’s

Toy to the turds.

This took the trembling

Tommy tears,

Triggering Tommy’s third

Tantrum today.

Tammy then tattled to Teacher.

The teacher told

Timmy to take the toy

Turtle to Tommy.

Then Timmy tried telling the

Teacher that, truthfully?

Tommy’s the thief that took

Timmy’s Transformer!

The teacher then told them to

Trade the two toys, telling

Tommy, “The tantruming’s through!”

Then Tattletale Tammy told

Timmy that Tommy told

Teacher that Timmy told

Threatening things.

Then Tammy told Tommy that

Timmy told Tammy that

Tommy’s toy turtle’s the

Trashiest toy . . .

Then Tammy took turns taunting

Timmy, then Tommy, then

Taking their toys, then

Telling the teacher,

‘Til Teacher told Tammy,

“The tattling’s through!”

Then took the Transformer,

Took the toy turtle,

Turned to the terrors to

Tell the three,

Thund’rously --

“Timmy?!? Tommy?!? Tammy?!?

TIMEOUT!!!”

(There. That’s that, then.

‘Til tomorrow though, Teacher...

Try to think tranquil thoughts ‘til then . . .)