A teacher asked her young pupils how they spent their vacation.
One child wrote the following:
We always used to spend the holidays with Grandma and Grandpa. They used to live here in a big, brick house, but Grandpa got retarded and they moved to Florida, and now they live in a place with a lot of other retarded people.
They live in a tin box and have rocks painted green to look like grass.
They ride around on big tricycles and wear name tags because they don’t know who they are anymore.
They go to a building called a wrecked center, but they must have got it fixed because it is all right now. They play games and do exercises there, but they don’t do them very well. There is a swimming pool too, but they all jump up and down in it with their hats on. I guess they don’t know how to swim.
At their gate, there is a dollhouse with a little old man sitting in it. He watches all day so nobody can escape. Sometimes they sneak out. And they eat the same thing every night: Early Birds. Some of the people can’t get past the man in the doll house to get out, so the ones who get out bring food back to the wrecked center and call it pot luck.
My Grandma says Grandpa worked all his life to earn his retardment and says I should work hard so I can be retarded one day, too. When I earn my retardment, I want to be the man in the doll house. Then I will let people out so they can visit their grandchildren.
