Bathroom Monologue: Eight Sentences, You Old Bat

I still remember Mrs. Cronenberg harping in fifth grade about how all paragraphs were at least eight sentences long. I never got an eight-sentence note sent home, no matter how elaborately awful I was. Any child who picked up a newspaper would find not one paragraph with eight sentences in it. Even today, four sentences is usually pushing it, with two-sentence paragraphs ruling the newsprint world, often beginning with "and," "because" or "but," and even ending in the forbidden "of." And I'm waiting for the girl who gets bored mid-essay to stop, write "Cont. Page 38" and inform her English teacher that she thinks the Science teacher has the Arts & Leisure section if she wants to read the remainder of her article. And the commas! I understand that it's difficult to explain the precise nature of independent clauses to a ten-year-old high off a twenty-ounce Pepsi, but come on, at least teach the kids rules that aren't broken every day in national media and bestsellers! In that respect, I guess we're fortunate that the literacy level is so low, or we'd never teach our young'uns how to write.