Zach Swee

This list is an oldie but a goodie.  Based off of my 8th grade Social Studies teacher Mr. LaPointe’s Talent Show gag, this list of 17 things was created by myself and my fellow canoeing buddies one year during the Boundary Waters.  The goal, is by simply going through the list one thing at time, to memorize the whole list.  You start by reciting the first thing.  When you have that down (come on, it’s only “1 hen”), you go onto the next one on the list, and recite both (“1 hen, 2 ducks”).  Next, you’d try to recite the first three (“1 hen, 2 ducks, 3 geese”)  Find a partner, get them to try it on you.  You may by surprised by what you’re able to remember! (I know a good number of people that can say each one of these word-for-word)

1 hen

2 ducks

3 geese

4 porculant porpoises

5 limerick oysters

6 pairs of Don Elviro’s tweezers

7 thousand Macedonian warriors in full battle array

8 brass monkeys from the ancient, sacred crypts of Egypt

9 sympathetic, apathetic, diabetic old men on roller skates with a marked propensity towards procrastination and sloth

10 lyrical, spherical, diabolical denizens of the deep who quiver around the quarry of the Quay; all at the same time

11 ferocious, vivacious, ostentatious appetites of a gaggle of antelope singing their own praises by the light of the moon

12 dented cars counted by the Federal Bureau of Indentations one week after the hail got the upper hand

13 simple-minded survivors from a sunken ship somewhere of the coast of a Caribbean island looking for laughs in all the wrong places

14 rival gangs of kleptomaniac cat-thieves working together to steal cable from the noisy neighbors next-door

15 perfectly good reasons why the girl across the room would love to have him as her man, or so the boy thinks

16 hippopotamuses in trashcans in the terrain of Timbuktu eating beef jerky in the most barbaric fashion

17 signs that alert the attentive driver of the dangers of the road ahead, so comprehensive in their caution that the only hazard they failed to warn against was a freshly laid oil slick left by the leaky engine of a Ford F150