What I Learned In School This Year

            That’s A Awful Lot Of Cough Syrup. At the school where I work as a hall monitor, everywhere I turn I see teenagers wearing T-shirts with that phrase. I am drowning in a sea of middle school reprobates wearing shirts that say that. Why Lord why?

            And at the end of the school year, the Lord sayeth unto me, “Get with it Mr. Al. That’s A Awful Lot of Cough Syrup is a brand you dummy. “

            “It is Lord?” I asketh as if I was in church.

            “It’s a highly successful brand of street wear founded by Los Angeles hustler and entrepreneur Desto Dubb. I am the Lord your God and I would know.”

            “No shit.”

            “Watch it there Mr. Al. Watch your language. You curse worse than the kids.”

            “My bad Lord.”

Turns out the Lord is right as he is about most things. The name of the ubiquitous T-shirts comes from a viral video of a police stop of Desto Dubb. During a traffic stop, a cop looked at Dubb’s belongings in the car he was driving and proclaimed, “That’s A Awful Lot Of Cough Syrup. You must be sick or something.”

            It was at that point that Dubb started coughing profusely in response to the officer. But that wasn’t the end of things. It was just the beginning.  The Watts native went on with his tattooed face to use the quote as the name of his business. And it became a multi-million-dollar empire. The video went viral as COVID.

            I watched a video online where an interviewer asks Dubb if he thinks people have to drink cough syrup to wear his brand.

            “What! No. It’s way past that bro.”

            “My brand is That’s A Awful Lot Of Cough Syrup… Cough syrup can be anything you want it to be. It can be an awful lot of water…an awful lot of cars…an awful lot of kids…”

            And with those words a star and role model is born.

“But what I can say is the main people that do wear the brand do sip cough syrup so it’s kind of like a hidden gem. So, I’m making something that all of the big people that sip cough syrup, want to wear it. Now they have created a market for me with all of their fans.”

            By big people, Dubb means rappers.

            “I don’t sip cough syrup, but my favorite artists do.”

            If Dubb had a chance to talk to his 18-year-old self, he would advise him of the following.

            “Stop gang banging, put these drugs down and stop following these niggas.”

            Truer words have never been spoken. It’s all about the gouda gangster.  Dubb is making bank. There are That’s A Awful Lot of Cough Syrup shops in Los Angeles and Houston. Maybe Dubb can expand and bring one of his shops to my hometown, Las Vegas.

            I like Dubb’s T-shirts so much, I’m going to suggest the school district make the gear a dress code violation.

            And as a stickler for good grammar the phrase should be as follows. That’s An Awful Lot Of Cough Syrup. You’re supposed to use the word an before words that begin with a vowel sound  (a,e,i,o,u), not just a vowel letter.

            The word an acts as a bridge between two vowel sounds like when you say that guy’s an asshole.

            Though I admit when you use the phrase, “He a asshole,” it has way more flava than a white boy like me can muster.

            An is what grammarians call an indefinite article. I have no idea what that is, but they tell me an indefinite article is a word used before a singular non-specific noun.  Whatever. Yawn. No wonder kids hate English class.     Although to me, calling someone an asshole sounds very specific.

            Now personally I would never sip cough syrup. I might have a couple of Mucinex & ginger ales after work. But that’s it.   

            Having explained all this to you in great detail, I’m going to start my own brand. That’s A Awful Lot of Maple Syrup.