Free All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten by Robert Fulghum

Which sailed through the air and exploded like a mortar shell into the hallway. True.
    Disgusting. Yes. Stupid. Yes. Go ahead, beat me up over this—a nice man like me. Tell me you never did anything dumb or gross in your entire life. Tell me you never had to clean up your own mess. Besides, what I did was not illegal, immoral, or a sin. Just
stupid
. The Bible says those without guilt should throw the first stone.
    It took a couple of hours to mop up the mess. And a couple of bottles of air cleaner to kill the smell. When people complained the next day that something awful seemed to have happened in the hall overnight, I kept my mouth shut. And have, until now.
    “Welcome back to the best part of the reunion,” I said to the Bible-burier—“where the truth can finally be told.” Maybe, someday, his mother will tell him things she did behind his back. Then they can they dig up the backyard looking for her Bible.

 
     
     

    T HE N AMES OF T HINGS
    A NYBODY SEEN A N AKED B ROOMRAPE, a Bastard Toad-flax, a Lesser Dirty Socks, or a Crouching Locoweed? These items are listed in various field guides to the wildflowers of North America. I am not making up these names. I can show you the photographs, too. Trying to mitigate my ignorance and to stop asking “What’s that?” of anybody I go hiking with, I’ve been working my way through the field guides and stumbling over these wiggy labels. My suspicions are aroused. Do these flowers with the bizarre names really exist, or is there some conspiracy among botanists to pull the public’s leg?
    If the plants are really out there, then I’d give a prize to meet the yahoos responsible for sticking such miserable names on nature’s blooming flora. How could you look at a flowering plant and say, “Let’s call that sucker a Naked Broomrape”? Especially when the purported flower has a pale violet trumpet shape with a dab of purest yellow in the center. You’ve got to be in a bad mood to do that.
    Worse, I want to get a look at the crab who had the peevish gall to say, “Well, that looks like a Bastard Toad-flax to me.” The actual plant is small, the complex flowers pale ivory, and the leaves olive green. Come on.
    And someone must have had a bad day in the bush when they declared, “See that—I say that sorry sonofabitch deserves to be called a Crouching Locoweed.” Referring to a plant with slender leaves, bearing a tall flower with multiple silvery-white petals.
    And as for “Dirty Socks”—a pinkish flower with touches of purple in the middle—I’d like to see the socks of the one who did the christening. I’ve seen ugly and unlaundered socks on some hikers, but I wouldn’t stick the name on a plant.
    All I can figure is that some plant mavens have a sour sense of respect for the subjects of their vocation. Field guides are full of mean-spirited adjectives—the “lowly” this, the “false” that, the “dwarf” whatnot and the “pygmy” something else. Wonder what they name their dogs and cats and children?
    And I’d sure like to know what was going on in the mind of the guy who named a small yellow sunflower the “Nipple Seed.” I’d like to meet his girlfriend, too. If he ever had one.
    So who cares, really? There are lots better things to get stirred up about, aren’t there? I suppose political correctness in naming wildflowers is not a bandwagon with much steam behind it, though dumber matters do get a lot of press.
    But I do wonder what would happen if we were to wipe the slate clean of all the names for things around us and start over. If our generation were responsible for labeling the environment, would we do any better, be any kinder to our plant friends? Probably not. Can you imagine the meetings—the congressional hearings?
    Besides, the experts tell us that the evolution of living things continues at such a rate that plants and animals and insects come into and go out of existence faster than human beings can catalog them. The