Daughter revels in 'Me-Me-Me TV'

Becca may have a career ahead of her in television.

At least, she sees it as fun to dress the part at a career day event at her middle school. Students came to school last Thursday dressed for their dream-world jobs.

Becca chose the job of TV reporter. She came to school with curled hair, a tape recorder, and a microphone carrying the made-up logo, "Me-Me-Me TV." She sported a news badge around her neck.

"Welcome to Me-Me-Me TV, hosted by Me-Me-Me, with news all about Me-Me-Me," she exclaimed into her tape recorder.

It may not be reality TV, but our fifth grader sure looked the part. She certainly has mastered the self promotion aspect of broadcast journalism.

At any rate, she had a blast acting out her "career" role.

She didn't choose to go as a newspaper reporter -- no glamour there -- although she did borrow one of my reporter's notebooks.

In preparation for her "career," she spent one night asking me, her mother and her sister to say a few words into a hand-held tape recorder.

I offered up little more than my name because I was concentrating on a game of Spider Solitaire on our home computer.

Bailey, our 7-year-old, confided into the tape recorder that she likes watching TV and eating pizza.

Becca seemed thrilled to get Bailey's confession on tape. It clearly was a major scoop.

She spent much of the rest of the night playing and replaying her taped comments promoting "Me-Me-Me TV." In her mind, she was more than ready for prime time.

If only she could have had some real news to cover like "rock smashes paper." She would have been able to report such news if only she lived in Elizabethtown, Pa.

There, a student named Thomas Shaffer organized a rock-paper-scissors tournament at his high school. You know the children's game in which players use their hands to imitate paper, scissors and rock.

Rock smashes scissors. Paper covers rock. Scissors cut paper.

I've played it many times with Becca and Bailey. But I never figured the game would ever be elevated to tournament status.

But leave it to Pennsylvania high school students to find deeper meaning in such a childhood tradition.

Shaffer has put some study into it. He recently told The Associated Press that most people open with scissors.

Shaffer managed to recruit 75 classmates to compete in a rock-paper-scissors tournament in the high school gym. He even convinced a sponsor to donate money for trophies.

Shaffer made it to the championship round, winning 19 matches in a row. But in the end he lost to a classmate who, like Shaffer, insists it's not about luck.

A senior, Shaffer won't be around to organize next year's tournament. But this year's winner is already promising to bring the tournament back next year.

In today's ESPN world, any activity can be turned into a tournament.

One nice thing about it is participants don't have to invest in expensive equipment and they can easily get hands-on experience.

Maybe some of these kids will turn pro some day and compete for big prize money and the chance to be interviewed by some Me-Me-Me TV reporter who knows how to cut it.

Mark Bliss is a staff writer for the Southeast Missourian.