Gerard stinks, pass it on.

During the summer between first and second grade, my parents had me enrolled in a daily summer program to get me out of the house. I had no friends there, and would eventually get kicked out when they took us to a second-rate amusement park where I spat at the llamas out of boredom.

Every morning, all the kids enrolled in the program would meet in a big gymnasium somewhere, and then would split off into different assigned groups to go do whatever it was we were doing that day. Each group had a couple of adults to make sure that we behaved and didn't wander off and die. One of our adults was a guy named Gerard.

One day, our group was on the city bus heading somewhere, and I saw the kids sitting across from me whispering to each other. One kid would whisper to whoever was sitting next to him, and then that person would whisper to whoever was sitting on their opposite side. I secretly wished that I had some friends, so that I would have somebody with whom to exchange secrets. As I was thinking about that, the kid next to me leaned over and whispered something in my ear.

"Gerard stinks, pass it on."

I laughed a little, but didn't yet understand the concept of passing it on, and didn't have anything against Gerard. The kid waited a minute and whispered it again. I failed to pass it on, so he waited another minute and whispered it once more. I suddenly understood the "pass it on" part, and I turned to the kid next to me and whispered.

"Gerard stinks, pass it on."

I must have whispered it loudly, because an old, grubby-looking guy with a beard who was riding the bus heard me.

"That's not nice," he said.