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Distracted By WOOT!

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Today’s post comes from perennial sophomore Bubby Spamden of Wendell Wilkie High School.

Hey Mr. C.,

So I spent all weekend thinking about my upcoming showdown with Alicia Erickson in Mr. Boozenporn’s class. Our debate about the Maximum Wage is going to be epic! Like I said I’m pretty sure she’ll destroy me but at least I’ll have her attention for almost fifty minutes, which was all I really wanted to do in the first place, so no matter what happens, I win! Woot!

But I’m still a little scared.

I was going to do lots of research on the huge differences between the top earners and the bottom earners and all that, but once I got online I got distracted by Facebook messages from people at school who were kinda taunting me and telling me I was going to do a face plant in the debate and it was gonna be an awesome debacle and woot! woot! and all the stuff that people say when they’re spouting off. Which got me to wondering what woot! means.

So instead of looking at wage statistics I spent a couple of hours researching WOOT. I found out that there are a bunch of different stories. Some say it started out as an acronym for “We Owned (the) Other Team” or “Want One Of Those”, but thanks to over-usage WOOT doesn’t really mean much of anything anymore other than Yay!

Once I got that figured out, I was ready to start on the debate research but then my mom came in and said I had to help her clean out the garden and the flowerbeds so new stuff could grow. I told her I had homework but she never lets me skip chores, so I lost the whole afternoon to doing stuff outside.

But this won’t surprise you – while I was out there, I kept thinking about Alicia Erickson. Especially where she said my idea of setting a maximum wage was stupid because it would discourage job creators and drain away their “urge to achieve.”

Even though I was raking wet leaves and using sharp clippers to trim away dead plants, my eyes kept seeing Alicia’s lips forming those words – “urge to achieve.” Good thing I didn’t cut off any fingers! But after a couple of hours of that, I feel like I’m kind of an expert on urges.

I decided that Alicia might like my maximum wage plan more if there was something in it to let the super-rich still feel special. It would have to have some way for them to keep competing with the other super-rich people besides just piling up money.

And that’s when I remembered WOOT!

So here’s the plan: Once you get to a point where you earn ten million dollars a year, you can’t earn anymore for yourself but you become a WOOT, or an Wealthy Oligarch Opportunity Titan!

Doesn’t that sound cool? It would be an all-capitals title that you’d put at the end of your name, like this – Warren Buffett, WOOT! The exclamation point would be part of it! By law!

I put the word “Titan” in there so they’d feel like superheroes, and the word “Opportunity” so they’d get the hint – everybody who reaches WOOT! status would compete with the other WOOT!s to do good works, like creating opportunities for other people.

Exactly what or how, I don’t know. I haven’t gotten that far on the details yet because we left so much stuff sitting in the garden at the end of last year and it took me all afternoon to clear it out.

But I think this is a pretty good start. It’ll be a lot more impressive than a bunch of dumb old statistics. And I’m sure I’ll think up even more details to add to it while I’m debating Alicia. I just have to remember to keep my mind clear, and not to look directly into her eyes or I might forget everything that’s in my brain.

Wish me luck. WOOT!

Your pal,
Bubby

Of course I wished Bubby luck but I have to admit I’m worried. Doing some real research might have been more helpful than coming up with a new meaning for WOOT!

If you could add an impressive title to your name, what would it be?

54 thoughts on “Distracted By WOOT!”

  1. In one of my favorite films, “The Apartment,” Jack Lemons’ neighbors (a Jewish doctor named Lieberman and his wife) believe he is a cynical philanderer having sex with multiple partners without regard to their feelings. The doctor’s wife says, “At first I thought he was a nice boy, but turns out he’s King Farouk!”

    One of the central themes in the movie is what kind of person Jack Lemon’s character actually is. Is C.C. Baxter using other people’s avarice to advance himself in the mindless bureaucracy of his insurance company? Or is he actually a decent guy with a good heart? At a critical point in the plot the doctor confronts C.C. Baxter and asks what sort of person he is. The doctor tells him he should strive to be “a regular human being,” a “mensch.”

    For a title, that would suit me very well. If people agreed that I was a regular human being, a man with integrity and compassion, I would be proud to be known as a mensch.

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  3. Thank you for that exhaustive research on WOOT!, Bubby. I had no idea. And don’t let anyone give you a bad time about being side-tracked either. I cherish the memories of setting out to find the info to write a report on arthropods for science class, and instead building my knowledge base on Greek and Roman mythology.

    I suspect I am not the only person here who would be happy if the title of MOM (Manager of Much) were elevated and remunerated to level of importance it actually holds.

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  4. I have decided that my goal is to wind up with a job title of Thinker of Thingish Things (with a nod to Winnie the Pooh for the “thinking thingish things” phrase). Not sure I can actually get HR to change their job titling to create that, but maybe I can at least get it on a business card…

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    1. would love to see the business card with the title, Thinker on it.

      And you know how it is, sometimes when “you Think of Things, you find sometimes that a Thing which seemed very Thingish inside you is quite different when it gets out into the open and has other people looking at it.”

      A.A.Milne’s card should say, author/philosopher

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  7. OMG & OT – Please tell me I don’t need to spend my hard-earned cash on The Stars Wars trilogy written in the language of Shakespeare. Just discovered it on Mental Floss.
    Forsooth, how did we get into this mess?
    I tell thee verily, I know not how.
    A thousand tauntaun bow’ls could not produce
    A greater desecration than this place.
    Alas, we two are made for suffering –
    I fear, R2, `tis but our lot in life.
    More than six million forms of speech I know,
    Yet not a one shall help me now.

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  9. I want to be High Mucky-muck Admiral Queen. I will trade it in for Power of Attorney, legal representative, and Executor.

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    2. I am pretty sure that Executor is a title that should come with a fabulous cape. At least then you’d feel like a super hero while you do the “stuff” of executor-ing (I can’t say executing, that just sounds bad in this context).

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  10. I still kind of like Pragmatic Eclecticist, which I stole from Wasband, but its acronym is only one E-word away from PEE…

    OT to Renee – I’m so sorry to hear about your mom, Renee. Condolences to you and your family; strength and energy to you and your dad as you deal with everything..

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  12. Very fun reading as usual. My title? Grand High Counsel to the Way of the Most Willy Nilly, GHCMW^3 (pronounced with a guttural sound in the back of one’s throat. Often heard when one’s child utters profanity before the Priest for the very first time, mockingly similar to your own dialect)

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      1. Thank You, Jane! It is one of those blogs that starts like most lives with a lot of challenges that don’t go as well as hoped but in the end, it gets really willy nilly. Please visit when you can. In the mean time, hope you don’t mind if lurk about, I enjoy your posts 🙂

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  14. Okay, maybe
    P.O.O.F. Person out of funds
    F.O.P. Clinger of pooh
    B.A.B.O.O.N. Big ass backward ornery old nincompoop
    W.I.M.P. Witless idiot maturing poorly

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  15. OT – anybody else staying up to see the elipse and the pink moon tonight? Should be clear here in Minnesota.

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    2. I will probably be awake for it – I guess the inability to get to sleep before 2AM (on a good night) is good for something!

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      1. Am l reading correctly that this is supposed to occur around 2am? Might as well take a look–that full moon has already landed me with 2 cars that would not start.

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      1. Yes, it’s gorgeous right now. I was going to go to bed for a bit and set the alarm, but now that I’ve goofed off for too long, I think I’ll just stay up.

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  17. I’m trying hard nowadays to not be a Grammar Nazi, but the incorrect use of apostrophes still bugs me, although I try to not be too vocal about it (unless I find it very funny). Call me the Admiral Queen of Apostrophes or AQuA for short.

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