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Yesterday I was reading the latest edition of Entertainment Weekly and came across a picture of funny gal Amy Sedaris. I was immediately thrown into a blast from the past when Ms. S. starred in a bizarre Comedy Central show called “Strangers with Candy.” The show was a wacko parody of the old Afternoon Special shows---the ones where some teen was in crisis and his or her monumental problems were worked out in the matter of an hour.

In “Strangers…” Sedaris portrayed Jerri Blank, a self-described “user, boozer, and two-time loser,” who returned to high school (specifically Flatpoint High, home of the Fighting Donkeys) at age 46, with the sincere conviction that she would succeed the second time around.

In the course of trying be popular, the pathetic Jerri always seemed to end up making a royal mess of things. And the school rules constantly put a cramp on her well-intentioned plans. --Like the time she had to lose weight in order to make the debate team (“It’s not what you say, but how you look saying it.”) Since Jerri had 80 percent body fat (the other 20 percent was scar tissue), she ended up dieting, became anorexic, and, in her family’s quest to get her to gain weight, she accidentally ate her pet Japanese chicken, Suki. Ooops.

One of the silliest recurring bits in the show was that Jerri had a different pet with almost every episode. There was her cat, Scabby; her rabbit, Tattle Tail; Shelley the Turtle; Gregory the Woodpecker; Clawson the Lobster, and Leslie, an albino boa constrictor. She kept most of these critters in her school locker at one time or another and would sometimes talk to them in between classes. Invariably, they would meet some oddball demise.

Of course, her school was filled with nutcakes. During Chastity Week, the girls phys. ed. teacher passed out ribbons that said, “Never Been Touched,” cherries dangling from them. The art teacher also had a flair for going over the top. One of his assignments was to have students pair off with a camera, then take pictures that exemplified the theme: Freedom. Well, Jerri ended up stripping down and having her partner take nude photos of her. The principal was outraged, but the art teacher backed her concept, talked her into staging a hunger strike, and then locked her into a school trophy case.

Damn! My own school days were NEVER that exciting!!