In the last week of school, time draws out like a blade. For children, it’s because they can smell the months of freedom lying just ahead. For parents, it’s the never ending barrage of end achievement days and certificates for breathing. The most horrifying of all these displays is the Fifth Grade Graduation Ceremony.

The art for middle school graduation will look the same, but for different reasons and don’t worry, they’ll get a certificate of achievement too. This guy has the right idea for surviving a pre-pubecent completion ceremony wherein Pomp and Circumstance is played, signifying the milestone of no longer wiping you mouth on your shirt.

If would be much easier to cast stones if there weren’t parents lining the walls, recording the ceremony for posterity. With the amount of balloons and flowers present, you’d think a student tripped over the cure for cancer in the recycling club meeting. Alas, gone are the days of picking teams for kickball. The injured feelings of the child picked last reigning supreme. Now comes the age of the social success meter: the volume level of clapping when a student’s image is splashed across the projector screen in a trip down fifth grade memory lane. With seven years of schooling left, one must wonder who came up with this idea, and how can we silence them forever.