I Pledge

This is a draft for a comic I came up with about a year ago. Turns out I like the draft images better than the comic itself. I learned an important lesson about not adhering to the traditional comic format and leaving yourself enough space. Anyway, I'll just tell you what happens along with these images:
It's in school and the pledge of allegiance just finishes playing. The boy in the top-left snorts. The girl notices and leans over to her friend: "What's his problem?" "Oh, he's home schooled. He's just here to take whatever standardized test they're making us do now. He doesn't normally have to say the pledge of allegiance." "So? What's so funny about saying the pledge of allegiance in school?" "At a guess, I'd say the 'liberty and justice part.'"

This comic is based on the true story of me doing exactly what the tall boy describes. For the record, I did not actually laugh during the pledge of allegiance. I take pledging my allegiance to a country under God very seriously, and I take my standardized tests also very seriously (to an unhealthy extent, though I've gotten better since a year ago!). However, I was mildly amused when I was led into this big high-walled concrete facility- through a series of electronic doors we had to get permission to go through- and finally into a room with only one door and no windows- where I would spend the next 2-3 hours sitting in one spot being as silent as possible with intermittent periods of exercise. It was a startling contrast from public school online, where I could get up in the middle of any lesson and go outside when I felt the need to, then return right back to my lesson. Add that to having to say the pledge of allegiance for the first time in about 6 years and I probably smiled.

It's one of my biggest hopes that this joke won't age well. I hope in a few years it will seem completely and totally reasonable to say "with liberty and justice for all" in a public American high school and that my kids will not get the joke. It should be completely and totally reasonable, it just isn't quite yet for a lot of people (who have it much worse than me). Hands folded. God's will be done for our educational system. I finished some of my biggest classes for this semester and year today. It was an even bigger day than I thought. Praise the Lord! For he is good to his servants in everything.