In Praise of See It, Say It, Sign It

“Alright, Hartmann. You know the drill? This is your basic alphabet song. Sing a letter, say a word starting with that letter. One word per letter, should be right around three minutes. Show us what you got. No heroics, just get it done and fly back to base.”

The alphabet song spaceport controller sounds almost bored. All of this comes out as one giant word because his tongue no longer has to engage his mind to produce the sound. This is the ten-thousandth alphabet song he’s had to hear since leaving his hometown to go into orbit. What a fool he had been to dream of adventure when he made it into the alphabet song space academy.

“See it, say it, sign it, the letters of the alphabet…”

The alphabet song spaceport controller rolls his eyes. The most rookie move of all is to think you can innovate something as old as the alphabet song,

“Hey Hartmann, no need to be cute. This isn’t some advanced space pilot alphabet song maneuver course. Just the basics please.”

He’s mildly irritated but this happens once every hundred recruits or so. It helped break up the monotony at first but now it irks him that one of these fools thinks they’re going to surprise him.

“A, A, this is the letter A. Ah Ah Apple, Ay Ay Acorn.”

“Hey Hartmann, I appreciate what you’re trying to do but knock it off. We don’t know need kids to know about long and short vowel sounds yet. Keep your hands on the stick. One letter one word please. They don’t need to learn sign language yet, either.”

He rolls his eyes. This kid is going to get himself killed if he keeps throwing sign language into this thing.

“B, B, this is the letter B. Buh buh Baby, buh buh ball.”

Back in the Phonetic alphabet spaceship command center an analyst notices something special about Hartmann’s trajectory. There’s a slow murmur as he brings another analyst to look at his screen.

“Listen Hartmann, if you have dreams of glory or some crap then…”

He trails off when he sees the analysts huddling together.

“C, C, this is the letter C. Cuh cuh cat,…