Just after the first semester ended and I had not been to the
principals office for a few weeks we rotated classes in the TLC group
to the life class which was code for home-economics. The teacher was
a great mound of a woman who was bossy and sassy and mean. She was
one of those people who was probably picked on as a kid but she
really wanted to pay everyone back by being in charge of her little
kingdom and being condescending and rude every chance she got. Well,
in the words of the incomparable Homie the Clown – 'Homie don't
play that'. Every time she would say something in an inconsiderate
way I would ask out loud to the class how she might say that in a more positive
manner. She was not overly excited about a student correcting her
manners. She started being extra picky about my behavior which did
not need a lot of nit picking to find flaw with as it was. I was soon
being written up and kicked out of her class at a regular pace. I
spent many a seventh period out in the hall marking time until school
got out and then sometimes she would ask me to stay after to talk
about my behavior and twice I missed the bus and in the pre-cell
phone wasteland of the early nineties my mom often could not be
reached and I would walk the five miles home. The first time she
asked for some administrative assistance with controlling me was when
she came to school in an all denim one piece jumpsuit with a rainbow
colored belt and brightly colored pompoms for buttons. In short, a
clown costume. When she walked into class I immediately noticed the
outfit and raised my hand until I was called on and I asked if she
was ashamed of herself for stealing clothes from what appeared to
have been a homeless clown. My joke got a decent laugh from the
students but she turned red splotchy with rage and stormed over to me
and picked me up by my hair and shirt and yanked me out into the
hall. I thought I was going to get beat up by a Junior High HomeEC
teacher and was actually fairly concerned. When we got into the hall
she threw me against the wall and I cringed and curled preparing for
a slap. None came but she asked my why I was always being such a
little shit. I said she should not use that word because it made her
sound uneducated. She grabbed my shirt again and dragged me around
the corner and down the hall to the principal's office and threw me
though the door telling the secretary I was to stay there until she
got her class under control and then she would be back for a joint
conference with the principal. The principal actually started with
me before she got back and I told the principal the story in reverse
order so I sounded less guilty and the teacher more so. When she got
back the story was that I had been disruptive, she pulled my hair and
called me a little shit and dragged me bodily down the hall to the
principals office. Much of this story was roughly true and the
principal was concerned over her language and physical assaults more
so than the clever observation I had made about her clown suit
looking outfit. I had left out the part about the clown suit in my
version of events because I wanted to make sure the principal wasn't confused by what he would probably consider extraneous facts. She was
so flustered and out of sorts that when he started questioning her
about her behavior she forgot to mention the initial provocation
either and she was looking like a very violent and unstable woman
while I was putting on my best choirboy face. I was warned to be
good in class and she had to stay for some extra talking. By this
time school only had five minutes left so I just went and got my
stuff from my locker and headed out to the bus stop.
