The Teachers’ Lounge – Mid-year memorable moments
Ned Bitters |
The mid-point of the school year is here (thank christ), which means it’s time for another selection of some of the better anecdotes from the daily goings-on in your standard public high school. With teachers like me and students like these, I offer you one piece of advice: Invest in Chinese stocks.
Shut up, Bitters … Don’t say a word … Just keep biting your tongue … Easy now
A cute senior girl was using one of those mini-lint rollers on her clothes. She got frustrated with its ineffectiveness and said, “Mr. Bitters, you wouldn’t happen to have a lint roller, would you?” Surprisingly enough, I did. (Don’t ask.) I took out my new, regular-sized lint roller and handed it to her. She gasped, “Oh my God, Bitters! You’ve got a huge one!”
I am the perennial league leader in the “Inappropriate Comment” category, but even I knew that that set-up was best left floating unreturned in the first period air. I’m too close to a pension at this point.
However, I did hear the boy next to her say as she began using my lint roller on her jacket, “Yeah, I bet you’d like to rub Bitters’ huge one all over you.” I thought again of my pension and didn’t even crack a smile. And I have to admit, it was nice hearing a girl say it to me just once in this life.
Because we have to work a whopping 190 days per year and get only nine weeks off every summer
Our nurse got on the PA recently and did a three-minute spiel about how to avoid this potentially lethal flu that’s sweeping the country. I emailed two teacher friends about this, ending with, “You know you’re sick of your job when the whole time the nurse is talking you think to yourself, ‘Oh man, I hope I get that flu. Three days off sick would be so worth it.” Yes, so worth this flu that leaves some people dead and others jealous of those who died.
One friend replied, “I know what you mean. Some mornings on my way to work I find myself actually hoping I hit a deer.”
The other added, “Reminds me of the one morning my car didn’t start and I went back into the house screaming for joy.”
Teachers are bigger whiners than cops and firemen.
“The Birds and the Bees”: Abridged version
A twenty-year-old girl came back to school after two years off because she really wants her diploma. I commend her for that. But she made it rougher on herself by getting pregnant this fall. I had the following conversation with her the day she told me she was packing a fetus.
Me: “You gonna have it?”
Her: “Yeah, I already had two abortions and I want to be able to have a kid, so I figure I better have this one and get it out of the way now.”
Me: “You know what drives me crazy about this? There are like 18 things you can do to avoid getting pregnant. What the fuck were you thinking?”
Her: “Well, it’s like this, Bitt. Sometimes you get goin’ at it and, hey, the man just gotta shoot that stuff up in there!”
Me: [Crying on the inside while throwing up in my mouth.]
Yeah, I’d say he got some bang for his suspension buck
I was walking through an empty hall when a vice principal came out of a teacher’s class with one our biggest pain-in-the-ass students. He’s one of those incorrigible types I just love because he’s not scary and he’s not a criminal. He simply hates school, and you can’t blame a kid for that.
They were both speaking very calmly, with the kid asking the VP, “So am I getting suspended this time?”
The VP said, rather sadly, “Yeah, I think I’m gonna have to send you home for three days on this one.”
The boy said, “Okay, that’s cool. But hold on a second.” At this point, the kid walked back, opened the classroom door and shouted in to the teacher, “I bet your glad the gay marriage thing passed, aren’t you, faggot?” Then he closed the door, walked calmly back to the VP and said, “Figured I might as well get my money’s worth.” The VP just laughed and said, “Yep, I’d say you did.”
And once again, I end with a selection of comments I overheard in class or in the halls
“L.J. bought me a .22! We’re goin’ squirrel huntin’ this Saturday! It’s our eight month anniversary!” She was so moved she was almost in tears.
“Oh, I’ma make me some babies!” And not be able to support any of them, for this senior can barely read.
“I’m gettin’ a pit bull and I’m gonna chain it up in the woods to protect my pot plants!” This is the same kid from my fall updates who couldn’t spell his mom’s name. Maybe he chose “pit bull” because it’s easier to spell than “Rottweiler.”
[PA Announement]: “Girls soccer practice is canceled for today.”
[Soccer player]: “Again? Christ, no wonder we suck.”
Not sure what the cross country and girls basketball excuses are. They practice every day and don’t have a win between them.
[In the parking lot on the way to the buses on the afternoon of December 20, the day before the Mayan Apocalypse. The speaker is a female, who screamed as loud as she could]: “Yo! The world gonna end tomorrow! Who wanna fuck?” She had not one taker, for she is about the size of a Mayan temple.
Ned Bitters teaches high school and dreams of one day seeing one of his former students on stage at a strip club. You can contact him at teacherslounge@hobotrashcan.com.