Ned Bitters

And now for the final installment of “What do you mean when you say you laugh every day at your job?” Every one of these episodes took place in my classroom this year. I’m sure that when the No Child Left Behind state test results arrive this August, some of my lovelies will indeed be left behind, but ain’t a one of them can say they didn’t get their money’s worth in the laughs department.

* * *

The kids were working on some bullshit busywork in my last period class. I didn’t care about the quality of their work. I wasn’t even going to grade it. I just wanted some quiet so that I could catch up on some email. For once, they were working quietly. (You remember last period of the day in high school, right? It was the let’s-fuck-around period. Still is.) Then Demona, in a mock attempt to give semi-retarded C.J. a heart attack, yelled out, “Mr. Bitters, C.J. is cheating off of me!” Before I had time to pretend that I cared or, more likely, to tease him even further, C.J. defended himself by declaring, “Nuh uh … I was cheating off of Melodee!” He was not trying to be funny.

* * *

I have been at this job for 21 years, so I can handle the most flagrant acts of disrespect in a calm, decisive manner. Usually. One day a girl came to class from lunch still eating a blue slushie. I don’t care if they eat in class as long as they pay attention. I wanted them to read along as I went over some directions. This girl, who I’d indulged all year because her mother died over the summer, was giving this slushie more attention than Ted Kennedy’s tumor got from his brain surgeon. I nicely asked her to stop and pay attention.

She said with great irritation, “I’m listenin’!”

This pissed me off, but I remained nice and said, “But I really need you to read along with us.” She said she would. We resumed reading. I looked over and saw that she was still worrying about that goddamn slushie. I marched over to her desk and tried to take it. She snatched it toward her. How did the always-in-control, 21-year veteran handle this act of disobedience? I yanked it out of her hand and yelled, “Give me that fucking thing!” She stormed out in tears, cursing me thirteen different ways. But I had that slushie, and we continued with the directions. After five minutes of laughter, that is.

* * *

Despite the previous item, I know I can still relate to students despite my middle age. The day I get fearful respect and hear no sarcasm from students is the day I’ll stab myself in the neck with a red grading pen. But sophomore Justin confirmed for me that my jugular is safe for now. One day I found Justin’s big bulky sports bag under my desk after my planning period. He had written a note on it that said, “This is Justin’s baseball gear. I’ll get it after 8th period. Don’t let me forget it … FAG!” That’s when you know a kid really likes you.

* * *

Over the past year I have developed a bizarre allergic reaction to some unknown stimulant. It has happened maybe a dozen times. My eyes swell almost completely shut, and they take almost 24 hours to return to normal. I missed a day of school this winter due to one violent attack, and when I returned to work the next day, my eyelids were still fairly swollen, resulting in endless playful abuse from my dickhead students. After the requisite five minutes of merciless teasing stopped, we began class. I asked a boy in the back a question in reference to something on the board. He said, “I can’t see the board.” Just as I was about to call him on his bullshit, as his vision had been fine all year, he said, “Your eye is in the way.” It was easily the wittiest line a kid delivered all year.

* * *

One smartass, who was obsessed with my age, tried to nail me (apropos of nothing, mind you) with this pointed barb: “Man Bitters, you’re getting pretty thin on top!” Before the rest of the class could get a cheap laugh at my middle aged expense, I returned his weak volley with this overhand smash: “Well, I’d have a lot more hair up their if your mom would quit yanking on it when I get her all excited.” Winner. Game, set, and match. I don’t believe Renaldo made any more comments about my age for the rest of the year.

* * *

We read something in an honors class in which a woman cheated on her husband. One future officer of the Moral Majority said, in true horror, “She cheated on him. That is just so … like … wrong!” Another kid in the class, a bitter precocious little fucker who I just loved, said in his most sarcastic tone, “What’s that James? A little louder please. We can’t year you from all the way back there in the ’50s.” I’d have rebuked him and supported the first kid had I been able to talk, but I was too busy laughing.

* * *

One day a teacher had her kids create some kind of white doughy stuff out of baking soda, water and who the hell knows what else. It was pretty cool stuff, though. It had the consistency of heated gum, yet it did not stick to one’s hands at all. One girl, seeing me so enthralled with the stuff, gave me her baggie with the white doughy ball inside so that I could play with it. We were watching Julius Caesar that day, so while they pretended to enjoy that shit movie, two wiseasses near my desk asked if they could play with my “white goo.” I broke off a piece for each of them and said, “Yeah, let me give you some of my goo.” We laughed, and it was on.

For the next 20 minutes, these two wits put on serious faces and played with my goo, making comment after comment, under their breaths and with straight faces, comments such as, “Oh no, I got some of Mr. Bitters’ goo in my hair” and “Don’t get any of his goo in your eyes or it will burn” and “I just tasted Mr. Bitters’ goo and it’s really salty” and “Mr. Bitters’ goo can get really stringy if you run it around your fingers.” I couldn’t write the rest of the lines down because I was heaving with laughter behind my computer. They never smiled once, which made it even funnier.

fter the movie, a different girl asked, “Mr. Bitters, can you give me some of your goo?” She was not trying to be funny. I threw it to her. She said with absolutely no crude intent, “Man, Mr. Bitters. Your goo is so warm.” The two boys and I nearly suffered hernias from holding in our laughter.

* * *

I had a Chinese kid who spoke much like white people do when imitating Chinese people. One day he finished his work and asked me, “Mr. Bitters … you correcting this?” I told him I was. He tried to hand it to me. I said I’d get it later. He said again, “But you say you correcting this, right?” I said, “Yes, but I’ll get it later.” He looked puzzled and asked, “Why you no just correct now then?” Just as I was about to lose my patience, I realized what was happening. This kid was trying to say “collecting,” but it was coming out “correcting.” It was right out of an old Hollywood movie, when guys named Bill Jones used to don black wigs with pony tails, squint their eyes and do bad Chinese accents where the L’s turn into R’s. The only thing missing was the pointy straw hat and rickshaw.

* * *

Yep, I laugh hard at this job every single day. I won’t even tell you about the kid who peed in the lab jar when the teacher wouldn’t let him use the restroom, or about the time a teacher brought his lunch (leftover steak dinner from Applebee’s) for the first time all year, only to find the empty container in the trash when he went to enjoy it, or the kid who, when I asked how he got those nasty brushburns on his knees, said, “That shit’s from bangin’, son!” or about the girl who came to my class the period after the National Honor Society induction ceremony, laughing hysterically because one of the new inductees had asked if she could cheat off that student earlier that morning.

I have all this fun and they still give me over two months off every summer. So if you ever hear me complain about this job, just shoot me an email and call me every dirty name you can think of. I’m serious. I know I have it great, so don’t let me forget it … FAG!

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.

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• The Teachers’ Lounge - Memorable moments 08, Pt. I
• The Teachers’ Lounge - Memorable moments 08, Pt. II
• Guest Blog - Memoirs of a science class survivor

Ned Bitters

Let us continue with Part II of “Another Screwball Year in Another Run-of-the-Mill Public High School.” Be assured that I have no need to embellish.

* * *

We have a junior who, by November, was failing most of his classes and becoming increasingly difficult to handle in the classroom due to his miserable disposition. He is borderline obese and extremely gay, hence the miserable disposition. However, he has a maturity beyond his years and comes to school dressed more professionally than most of the staff. He is quite articulate and, despite his shitty grades, rather intelligent.

This is where you expect me to describe how a caring, understanding (and probably gay) teacher took this troubled young man under his wing and turned him around. Well, almost. An elderly V.P., tired of dealing with this young man’s discipline issues, decided on a more novel approach. He took him out of most of his classes and let him serve as his quasi-assistant for most of the day. Before long, this young man was helping clear the halls. Then he began serving tardy and unexcused absence papers to students. He carried an administrative walkie-talkie. Eventually, when a teacher would page a V.P. for an in-class discipline problem, this student would show up at the door. One day he came to the room next to mine when the young teacher had called for a V.P. I heard this exchange:

Teacher: “So-and-so in the back row needs to leave my class immediately.”

Junior V.P.: “What did he do?”

Teacher: “He cussed me out when I repeatedly asked him to stop talking.”

Junior V.P. (to bad kid in back of class): “Okay, let’s go …”

Bad Kid in Back of Class: “Shut the hell up, Asswipe…you’re in my third period.”

* * *

During an evening meet, a wrestler suffered an injury severe enough to require EMT treatment. The athletic director, a man in his mid-60’s who has been at the school for over forty years, stood near the injured wrestler while the coach called 911. Immediately after the call, the A.D. ran off to his office. The coach assumed he was going to begin whatever legal process ensues during in such situations. The usually rumpled A.D. returned three minutes later, now sporting a coat and tie and freshly combed hair. The coach gave him a puzzled look. The A.D. said, “Some of the EMT’s from that station are pretty hot, and I want to look good for ‘em.” The wrestler ended up being okay. The coach resigned after the season. The A.D. is returning for year 43. He still keeps a tie and jacket in his office so he can look sharp for cute, young EMT’s. He’s still in his mid-60s.

* * *

After the unexpected mid-year death of a math teacher, we were forced to hire a long-term sub who was all of 21 years old. He was friends with many of the kids, as he lived in a local neighborhood. They’d show up at his house to play video games and just hang out. They called him Mr. Steve, for they found him young and cool. One day a student walked by his classroom door and playfully punched his arm. The teacher playfully hit him back, only a little harder. The student hit back harder. The teacher hit back harder. Soon, they were wailing on each other’s arms. The student caught the teacher in the wrong place, hurting him, and Mr. Steve reacted by thumping the kid square in the chest with a hard right cross. The kid fell to the floor, unable to breathe, in the throes of a seizure. He spent the night in the hospital. It was cool, young Mr. Steve’s last day at our school. No one was too upset. After all, when he was in high school just a few years ago, he had failed the very math course he had been teaching at our school all year.

* * *

One morning at the copy machines, another depressed, defeated teacher was staring at the bulletin board looking over next year’s schedule. Suddenly he brightened. He said, “Oh yes! Next year we start Christmas break on the 19th and don’t have to go back until January 5th! That’s a 16-day break!” Then he paused, cocked his head, did some considering, and said, kind of sadly, “Well, looks like I gotta stay in teaching at least one more year.”

* * *

When our current principal came to our school, he did away with the daily morning sign-in sheet in the office. A true professional, he was under the hilariously misguided belief that his teachers also adhered to professional standards. After a few months, he noticed that many of the same bozos were arriving up to a half hour late. He had the techies install a computer sign-in system so that we could all sign in from our rooms instead making that oh-so-long trek to the office every morning. This worked for a month or so, but then people started ignoring this procedure. The principal mentioned at a staff meeting that he would begin monitoring the sign-in system and docking the habitually tardy teachers. However, he couldn’t follow through on this threat. Two days later, the sign-in system no longer worked. Someone had hacked it and rendered it useless. It was never fixed. Neither was the tardy problem.

* * *

One of our V.P.’s is a hardass former wrestling coach. He does a fantastic job, but let’s just say he’s not too into his classroom observation duties. He’s the prototypical former coach, lewd, brusque, loud and intimidating. (He’s also a softie with a heart the size of Greenland, but that doesn’t belong in this anecdote.) He saw a group of us talking in the hall one afternoon. He came up and griped about how he had to do classroom observations on most of us. He hates doing observations. A second-year P.E. teacher, no doubt intimidated by a man who was recently inducted in the National Wrestling Coaches Hall of Fame, said, “Just let me know when you’ll be in and I’ll have a lesson plan all written up for you.” How did our Mr. Testosterone handle this gesture of professional respect? He literally jacked the young teacher up against the wall and said, “If you waste one fucking minute writing up a P.E. lesson plan I will fucking waste you, do you understand?” When he observed one of my classes two weeks later, I handed him a written lesson plan just to piss him off. I found it in my mailbox later, crumpled into a ball with the word “ASSHOLE!” in red ink. I got a stellar observation report.

* * *

I wrote one of our borderline illiterate seniors a letter of recommendation for his mandatory senior portfolio. I handed it to him during my lunch break just as another teacher was walking into my room. Just after the kid thanked me, the smartass teacher asked the kid, “Would you like me to read that for you?”

* * *

A kid came to my room with a bag of candy tied up with colorful ribbon. I asked him where he got it. He said he won it in Health class. I asked him what he did to win it. He told me, “I got the highest score on the test about healthy eating habits.”

* * *

During the first week of teacher activities, we were subjected to yet another session on how to vary our teaching techniques. We had to read a section of a book, then share what we just learned. (You know, lesson # 7 in the “Lazy Ways to Present Bullshit to Fellow Co-workers in Meetings that Absolutely No One Wants to Attend.”) But since the presenters were friends of mine, I figured I’d help them out and participate. When they took responses, I went first. I said that research has shown that kids respond more to intrinsic rewards (praise and such) than they do to tangible rewards (candy, prizes and such). One presenter, thrilled that someone volunteered to participate, said, “Well done!” She ran over to reward me for my participation. How did she reward me? With a very tangible mini Snickers bar.

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.

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Ned Bitters

It’s early June, which means it’s time once again to look back at some of the more memorable moments from a year in the life at a public high school. Why anyone ever leaves this humor goldmine of a job is, like the art of teaching itself, beyond me.

While classic quotes make up most of this year’s greatest hits, some of the better moments involved few or no words at all. This year I saw:

A student spend an entire three hour state-testing session writing with his right hand while his left hand massaged his cock like a baker kneading his dough. His hand was so entrenched in his dirty blue sweatpants that he even used his writing hand to turn the pages of his test booklet. He offered me a piece of candy before he left. I politely declined the offer. I’m not sure if it was a sourball.

A young lady come to my honors English class every single day for the first four months of school. She was never sick. Then, after New Year’s she missed two weeks of school. When I asked if anyone knew what was wrong with her, a student casually informed that “she had her baby.” Yep, Mr. Observant, Mr. I Really Get to Know My Kids, didn’t even realize she was pregnant.

A first-year 40-something teacher fall asleep so hard at his desk during class that he stayed in Snoozeville through an entire change of classes. We, the teachers, found it rip-roaringly funny. That is, until he died in his sleep two weeks later. Apparently, he had unknown health problems. However, he was kept alive in our memories for weeks. Why? Our clueless guidance counselor kept calling his name over the P.A. for parent conferences. I’m assuming he didn’t show up.

Parent email addresses “barwench@…” and “trustnobitches@…” Maybe these two single parents (”No way - those two prizes are single?”) can meet up at the Skank Inn for some drinks and darts some night this summer, fuck, and have a child that grows up and has the email address: myparentswereclasslessidiots@…

A male track athlete get harshly scolded by a female teacher for throwing around a football while shirtless. The kid calmly picked up his shirt and put it on, then promptly removed his shorts and continued playing catch. I’m sure the two-day suspension was worth achieving legend status in the Ned Bitters Smartass Hall of Fame.

But some of the best humor came in the form of unintentional funny lines. Here is a sampling of the best accidental comedy from the past year:

As if being middle-aged isn’t depressing enough, the kids reinforce the fact that I am now much closer to my deathday than my birthday. One well meaning little bastard said, with complete sincerity, “Mr. Bitters, you look young … from far away.” Thanks, you myopic prick. Another girl scrunched up her face and said, with great concern for my appearance, “Do you got paint in your hair? Oh wait, it’s only a lot of gray. My bad.” Thanks, you myopic wench. And finally, another girl, trying to give me a compliment, said, “Sure, Mr. Hobart has the hotness factor, but you’ve got the funny factor.” I guess I’ll take ugly and funny over ugly and unfunny. Then I’d be Billy Crystal.

Next we have the borderline mentally retarded kid from the hardcore special ed class who had one of his similarly dimwitted classmates go ask a girl if she’d go out with him. The messenger came back with a negative reply, explaining, “She said no because she knows you still play with Transformers.” The poor bastard frowned and said, “Not that much!”

This same kid, while trying to talk smack about the rich rival high school that has all top-notch facilities, including a gorgeous artificial turf football field, said, without trying to be funny, “They ain’t all that. They so poor they can’t even afford real grass.” Zinger!

I had a hardcore thug from D.C. with a criminal past who came here to get the few remaining credits he needed for a diploma. He missed at least eight days of school due to court dates. One day, while doing some vocabulary work, he asked for a dictionary like this: “Hey, Mr. Bitters, can you give me a dic-dic?” I gave him my best gay look, and the entire class roared while I went and got him a dictionary. I dropped it on his desk and said, “Here Shareed, I got a nice fat one for you. Let me slap it on your desk. Now use it.” He didn’t kill me. Yet.

Even I am not immune from saying something unintentionally ridiculous. I have a kid who is real-deal crazy, disturbingly so. He was sent away for special help for a month this year after he told a psychologist that he was this close to harming himself and others in the school. He is an expert on mass murderer lore. He is obsessed with deviant sex acts. He once drew me a picture of decapitated woman with a man standing next to her holding an axe in his left hand. In his right hand? The woman’s head, her open mouth placed over his cock. This picture was drawn especially for me. So yes, he’s batshit nuts. One day before class, he went to my computer without my knowledge. My email was open. He read an email from a parent, then commented on it when I came into the room. How did this 21-year veteran teacher handle this invasion of privacy? Very calmly and with great maturity, of course. I yelled, “You read my email? Are you fucking crazy? I mean, are you totally fucking nuts?” He said, with zero emotion, “Yes. But you know that already.” Another kid’s self-esteem raised high high high!

Those were just a handful of some of the countless unintentionally funny moments from this year. Next week, in Part II of “Why Our Schools Come Up So Miserably Short in Global Education Studies,” we’ll go over some of the funny lines that were meant to be funny. That is, if that crazy sonofabitch email reader doesn’t kill me before then. The decapitation doesn’t scare me. It’s the thought of being forced to give a post-mortem hummer that terrifies me.

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.

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Ned Bitters

Even though I started at this job when Ronald Reagan was wrapping up his vastly overrated presidency, I still get nervous the night before the first day of school every year. Even our superintendent, who is old enough to remember when Ronald Reagan was an actor, sent out a mass email the Friday before the opening week, admitting that even he has trouble sleeping the night before the school year starts.

No matter how much experience you have, you never know what your classes will be like. Some years, the final bell rings and I sit back at my desk and heave a hearty “Whew!” because I know that I’m going to have a decent year. I can already tell that my kids are not going to make life that difficult for me.

Other years … well, let’s just say it’s not exactly a “Whew!” that I utter at the end of the day. I remember just five or six years ago when, halfway through an awful first day, I started walking down the hall toward the room of another teacher with whom I shared most of the same students, as we were on the same “team.” (In a fit of creativity, we named ourselves the “Champion” team. See why we’re not working in the art world?) I planned to express my growing apprehension about the lot of loathsome losers we had been dealt that year. I hoped that maybe I was just misjudging the awfulness of our kids. She had begun walking toward my room at the same time to express the same worries. We locked eyes in the crowded hallway, stopped and after a few seconds of wide-eyed mutual understanding, we shook our heads, then returned to our rooms, knowing the next 179 days were going to be absolute torture. It was just our turn that year.

However, even though I never know what the overall makeup of my kids will be like, I can be fairly certain that I will have a dozen or so of a certain type of student who will make my day interesting, scary, painful and just plain miserable. Below is a description of some of these edu-regulars that I will almost surely have to contend with each year.

The Misanthrope
This miserable specimen will spend the entire first class sneering at every word I say, establishing from the get-go that he hates school, teachers, me especially and everything about the painful existence he is forced to endure on this wretched planet. He might be Goth, redneck, black, gay … it doesn’t matter. I will have at least one of these kids every year. He wears his contrived world weariness like a bright orange hunter’s jacket, wanting the world - and especially his teachers - to see that absolutely nothing will pique his interest or get him excited to learn. No creative fun lesson will engage him. He’ll laugh at nothing, not even that surefire killer joke that was about the retarded midget and the baby with the severe birth defect. (Punchline: “Yeah? Well, I might have claws for hands, but at least I’m not a midget and retarded!” Slays ‘em every time.)

He’ll put his head down and sleep through the comedies I show on those days when I’m too hungover or too lazy to teach. (Me being me, he will at least be well rested by the end of the year.) Even though his perpetual grimace is just an attention-getting act born out of a crushing insecurity, I will at times wonder if he is indeed on to my utter ineptitude as a teacher, and some days I will hate myself for allowing this 15-year-old crank to get under what has become a fairly thick skin. Despite my best efforts to ignore him, I’ll allow myself to be just a bit intimidated by him all year. So, instead of letting him know that I am on to his fake angst, I will make pathetic efforts to get him to laugh or to show at least an ounce of enthusiasm about something. Of course, I will fail in these attempts, and my failures will ironically give this mass of melancholy his only moments of happiness all year. Not that he’ll ever let it show though.

The Quiet Brain
This girl will show absolutely no emotion on the first day, or any other day for that matter. She will stare at me with no animation whatsoever. Her eyes will show no light or life, but I know she will take in every word I say and every gesture I make, measuring my worth as a teacher in order to determine just what kinds of hoops she’ll have to jump through to maintain the 4.0 grade point average that gives her life meaning. She could care less about me as a human, for her entire being is focused on pleasing mommy and daddy with four stellar report cards every year, so she is only trying to gauge what I am all about as a teacher.

She is adept at keeping her grade updated to the exact decimal point in every class, and should I or any teacher dare to tell her that she has earned an 89 percent - B for a quarter, she will demand to see a breakdown of her grades and will invariably find an averaging mistake or a grade that she can argue up in order to land the coveted 90 percent that returns her world to its proper order. Should this brush with a B (Oh, the horror!) transpire at the end of the first quarter, she will make sure to get 100 percents for the rest of the school year, daring me to knock off even one percentage point so that she can once again experience the exquisite pleasure of watching me squirm at my computer and before finally admitting - once again - that she was right. She’s not really that smart, just good at playing the school game. While on one level I hate her, on another level I relate to her, because that last line sums up my performance as a teacher.

The Mensa Inquisitor from Hell
This is the kid who, unlike the Quiet Brain, will immediately start asking challenging questions - that he knows damn well I can’t answer - in a successful effort to establish his intellectual superiority on day one of the school year.

Since I am an English teacher, he will scan the syllabus and then ask why we will read no books from his favorite author, some long-winded human cure for insomnia like Henry James, and before I can make up a pretentious answer that will fool everyone but him, or before I can lie and tell him that I’ll answer that “good question” later, but “goshdarnit, we’ve just got too much to cover today,” he will ask me what me favorite Henry James book is, daring me to take the easy way out and name one of the only two Henry James titles I know (and certainly didn’t bother to read in that bullshit English Lit class you never went to in college), a reply he will greet with a half sneer and a knowing nod that say, “Shit, Teach. Now that I’ve established a mere15 minutes into class that I know more than you do about literature, I think I shall enjoy making you feel inferior in the brain department on a daily basis for the rest of the school year. You just became my favorite target. Now let me peruse the rest of these materials you just handed out, the materials that most of the other kids are ignoring. I will scan them for grammatical errors, typos or other areas about which I can ask questions that you will have to bullshit your way through. You may commence squirming.”

I will hate this kid more than the most disruptive derelict in my worst class, but not because of how bad he makes me look in class. I do a good enough job on my own of showing my incompetence, and the last of my pride disappeared many years ago, along with my hair. No, what I will hate about this kid is that he will force me to work that much harder outside of school. Instead of doing my normal half-assed planning of tomorrow’s lesson during the eight minutes of Seinfeld commercials, I will be forced to anticipate this wonderchild’s probing questions about diction, tone, connotation and symbolism, forcing me to do lesson planning that is a little more extensive than the normal drawing up of 30 grammar questions that will keep the teenaged rabble quiet while I check spring break air fares on Sidestep.com. And I will feel a little guilty - but only a little - on those mornings when I awake from pleasant dreams of watching this prick die in a fiery bus crash.

The Grade Grubber
This student is different from The Quiet Brain in that the Grade Grubber is not necessarily a top student. Some of the students who are most adept at talking the teacher into raising a grade are just C and D students. They will pester the shit out of me with convoluted yet effective arguing skills that would wear down Johnnie Cochran. (If he weren’t dead.) These kids might not be book smart, but they are experts at chipping away at a teacher’s patience to the point where it becomes easier to just raise the grade and be done with it.

One tack they use is making me feel like the world’s biggest prick by forcing me to argue why they deserve that 69% D. This kid has no intention of going to Harvard or pursuing a career as an endocrinologist, and at a certain point in the tiresome grade dispute, I realize that I am doing nothing more than exerting my pathetic teacher power over another average kid who finds little school success and just wants an average grade from an average teacher in an average high school. I realize that I wouldn’t be teaching him any vital life lesson about how you have to earn things in this life. I certainly don’t earn my paycheck most weeks. So I give in. Every time.

Another tack used by the Grade Grubber is forcing me to take a position that they know my disorganized ass can’t back up. They will insist that they “really, really honest-to-god-I- swear” turned in that one assignment that I have given him a zero for, and being the alcoholic, apathetic non-professional that I am, I simply concede and give the kid a C for that assignment, even lying about how I “kind of remember” that paper. I’ll come up with some pathetically transparent lie about how I remember the computer crashing as I was putting in the grades that day. At this point, this kid, whom the school has labeled “dumb,” has just scored an intellectual trifecta: One, he got his much sought after C; two, he made me lie and, what’s even better, he knows that I know that he knows I lied; and three, he won’t get clubbed in the head by his alcoholic father for another D.

The Anal Annie/Andrew
This kid might be all brain, all moron or part brain-part moron, but in any case, I can bet my last extra credit point that this kid will dot every “I” and cross every “T” for the entire year, because this tightassed, anal-retentive hump is always supremely organized. While most of the class ignores my detailed expectations about binders, notebooks, absence notes and the proper heading I require on all papers (at least for the first two weeks, at which point I stop giving a shit and accept anything as long as it’s written in English), this kid, who mourns the fact that he was born 70 years too late for the job he covets - the diligent train station Nazi who checks to make sure “vun’s papairz are een ordair” - will listen at full attention and then pepper me with questions such as, “Do you prefer blue or black ink?” or “Does it matter how wide the lines are on my ruled paper?” or “Did you know that on the back of your syllabus, you change font size twelve lines down, and that this sort of inconsistency wrecks the perfect fucking order I crave in my universe, and that I will have to go home and retype this entire goddamn paper just so that it is looks right? Huh? Do you?” This kid will do C work all year, but I will often give him B’s for the simple fact that his work always looks so damn good. While the other kids are handing in papers ripped from notebooks with torn edges, no names and handwriting that looks like it was penned by the crippled kid in the retarded midget joke, his work will be immaculate.

The Disconcerter
This future keeper-of-corpses-in-his-basement will bore into me with his black, expressionless eyes for the entire first class. Unlike the Quiet Brain, who is irksome but not scary, this Dahmerish specter will have me stammering and stuttering through the pre-rehearsed jokes I’ve been telling since the days when I was still waking up with hard-ons, rendering my first-day funnies drier than the three vermouthless martinis I’ll need that evening to get the terrifying image of this kid’s satanic eyes out of my mind. Like the Misanthrope, he will not talk all year. Unfortunately, he won’t sleep either. He’ll just stare at me all period, every day, probably fantasizing about how he’d like to flay my rotting carcass after inflicting upon me a slow, painful death.

I’ll think of referring him to a guidance counselor or to the school psychologist, but I’ll refrain out of the pure fear I’ll feel at possibly angering Chuck Manson, Jr., for, curiously, my idea of an easy day at work never includes the image of a future postal worker making my classroom first stop on the Batshit Crazy Shotgun Express. As a sort of mental balm, I sometimes include this creepo in the soothing bus-conflagration dream that gives me so much slumber pleasure.

The Flirt
Being in my mid-40s, I find this cleavage sporting tart to be all but extinct in my classes, but occasionally I’ll still encounter one. This vivacious vixen will sit near the front of the room, legs fully extended beneath the desk and spread at a 45 degree angle, nearly exposing her 15-year-old, raggedy, used up twat. She’ll sport a low-cut shirt that exposes two of the nastiest bologna tits this side of any Cops episode that features a trailer park arrest. (Which means pretty much every Cops episode, I guess.) These tits, despite being only a few years old, will already be strafed with stretch marks. I will look at them and valiantly fight off the gag reflex, but little Miss Full o’ Confidence will think that I am checking her out.

Of course, she has no sexual feelings toward my soon-to-be-collecting-Social-Security ass, but she’ll think that her titty tease is working, and that I will be so enamored of her scary, scarred tits that I’ll be powerless not to give her a grade at least 15 percentage points higher than the one she deserves. Just to make sure she’s made her point, before the end of class, she’ll come to my desk for a bend-over question, and despite the revulsion I’ll feel every time I’ll see those disgustingly strained hooters, I’ll still give them a quick peek, the same way I’d be unable to resist taking another look at some oozing brains at a crime scene. Both would make me ill, but I’ll look nonetheless. She’ll note my instinctive ogling and misinterpret it as the leer of a middle aged perve. I’ll give her an undeserved higher grade all year, but only because I don’t want to see her up at my desk trying to coax her much deserved D into an undeserved B by hoisting those hideous hogans in my face.

The Abused
This sad sack future suicide will suffer every day, all day in a public high school, and I will have the great displeasure of seeing this suffering up close for 45 minutes every day. He might be obese, dirty or smelly. He might be severely visually unpleasant in some other way. Or he might look normal, but he’ll have that certain something that makes him an easy target for every kid in the class. I know you remember kids like that in your school.

I will try to help him maintain some level of invisibility by never calling on him and never doing anything to remind the other 25 vicious asswipes that they have an easy target for their adolescent venom. His presence will make me squirm, and my pity will for once override my sick desire to join the kids and throw a little more abuse his way. This will make me feel mature, a feeling I don’t often get to experience.

Mr. Thuglife, Yung!
This kid will pass by me extra close on the way into the classroom on the first day, trying to intimidate me or make me shiver. Of course, I know it’s just a test to see if he can establish a physically threatening presence, which is supposed to result in me leaving him the fuck alone and passing him regardless of how little work he does all year. But the dipshit has no idea that I know that this wannabe thug is scared shitless deep down, and that he can barely read or write, and that he is terrified of me finding this out.

I know that if he were truly tough, he’d have no need to show it with such a blatant invasion of my personal space. He’s simply imitating the faux-toughness he’s seen in rap videos and movies. But he’s really just a big pussy. In three weeks, his guard will be down and he’ll be laughing at my corniest jokes with the rest of the class. (Except for the Disconcerter and the Misanthrope, of course. They’ll still be sneering and staring.)

Mr. Real Thuglife, Yung!
Unlike the thug poser, this manchild feels no need to walk too close to me when he enters the room, because he knows that I know that he can wipe the floor with my bleeding remains should he ever feel the need to resort to student-on-pathetically-weak-teacher violence, and because he might bruise my shin with his ankle bracelet, and the bruise might be construed as assault, which would be a violation of his parole, which would land him back Juvie until he’s 18.

Because I am a teacher with many years of experience and a strong survival instinct, I will leave this ex- and future-con alone, never giving him a failing grade, never calling on him when his hand isn’t raised and never jumping on a soapbox to extol the virtues of the Three Strikes law. In fact, I have found that the most hardcore high school criminals are the ones least likely to give me any trouble. They know what jail is like, and they know that one fuckup could land them right back in the slammer. Or, if they’re making good money selling drugs in school, the last thing they want is to attract the attention of any administrators by getting written up. So they sit in the back, stay awake, do average work, ponder lunchroom drug sales and remain grateful to be left the hell alone.

Mr. Passive Aggressive
This irritating asswipe will do everything he can to piss me off on the first day in myriad little ways. He’ll go out of his way to show me that he is not listening to anything I say. He’ll ask for a restroom pass 10 minutes into class, then whine when I tell him no. He won’t cooperate during the unoriginal but standard getting-to-know-your-boring-asses opening day activity that every teacher does. (You remember these, right? “Find someone in this room who has visited another country … find someone who has at least two pets … find someone you hope to coax into a stairwell blowjob before the Christmas break …”) He won’t fill out the student information forms correctly, conveniently leaving off his parents’ phone numbers. He will ask 27 inane questions, the answers to which he could give two shits about. When he leaves class, he will leave the papers I gave him on the floor under his desk. By the end of the first class, he’ll think he’s established the upper hand, but I will make him pay with a very unpassive aggression over the next few weeks, driving him into cowering submission with my sarcasm and viciousness until he no longer tries to vex me with his nettlesome behavior. This should take me until about September 20th.

The Aging Beauty Queen
This is high school’s version of the aging actress who no longer gets the Hot Chick roles, yet doesn’t know that her days of being leading lady, cock-spank material are long gone. This girl was every boy’s dreamgirl in fifth grade, when she peaked in the looks department. Now she is living on cuteness fumes, still believing that she is some sort of stuff on a stick, when in fact she is just another average-looking girl who will go to the prom with the Key Club president instead of the quarterback. Too many nights spent sitting in front of the mirror instead of sitting on an exercise bike have rendered her ass the size of Saskatchewan, and by winter she’ll realize that her days of manipulating the cool boys are gone forever, and she’ll have to sit and watch the nouveau-hot girls, the same girls she used to enjoy ignoring in elementary school, get all the attention. Her depression will become palpable. At least she’ll cause me no problems.

The Retarded Midget
Unfortunately, I have yet to encounter this pint-sized, drooling gem. But when I do, you can bet your ass I’m still telling that joke.

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.