A LESSON AT BREAKFAST

By Tammy Salazar

Professor Plotzburger was still upset at the poor grade his daughter had received on her midterm exam in Mesoamerican history.

"Oh, what's the big deal?" Kitty Plotzburger moaned.

"What's the big deal?" he cried. "The big deal is that those who don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it! That's the big deal." Kitty rolled her eyes and stabbed a forkful of scrambled eggs.

"Listen to your father," Nellie Plotzburger said. "I know he's not a real professor, but sometimes he makes sense."

Suddenly there was a clap of thunder, and the Aztec corn god Cinteotl rose angrily from a bowl of grits that sat steaming on the table. He snapped his fingers, and long stalks of corn began sprouting from Kitty's nose and ears. She opened her mouth to scream, and her parents saw that her teeth had been transformed into little yellow kernels.

"This illustrates my point exactly," the professor said, pouring another cup of coffee. "Well, okay, in sort of a roundabout way."

(It's becoming increasingly clear to the literary world that Tammy Salazar is nothing short of a modern-day Aesop.)