The double standard

One of the best things about this job is that you get to spout off all day to the kids about how they should live their lives, then you get to leave the building and resume your life as a nicotine-addicted, caffeine-beholden, porn-devouring, substance-abusing, overeating mess of an alcoholic. The inconsistency and double standards the job affords you are exhilarating.

You’ve got the teacher who rams the clean living message down kids’ throats all day, then that same teacher plops his preachy ass in his car and drives home with a cigarette between his lips, a beer between his legs and some gonorrhea-killing penicillin stashed between the pages of his latest issue of Middle School Confessions. (The July issue in a must have, by the way.)

I’m not attacking people’s vices, mind you. I’ve got two walk-in closets full of my own. I just don’t stand in front of the room like a pillar of piety and tell these kids how to eat, how not to ingest drugs and alcohol (no matter how good they make you feel) or how sex is a filthy, dirty act best left to Democrats.

There’s no place for honesty in this job, most of the time. I’ve actually said the words, “Don’t do drugs ... irresponsibly” to my classes. You think I don’t get their attention with that rare dose of candor? Unfortunately, I’m not allowed to continue that line of lecturing, as it would be condoning drug use, and that’s forbidden. That is, unless we want to calm down that hyperactive yahoo in 7th period who bounces around the room like an electron on speed, in which case it’s bring on the drugs and keep ‘em coming. Hey Mr. Pharmacist, howzabout some Ritalin for the kid and, while you’re back there, score me some Zoloft for my job-induced depression. And refill my sleeping pill prescription, too. Oh, and throw in one of those anti-drug pamphlets while you’re at it, because I gotta lecture the kids tomorrow on the evils of drug use.

These kids see right through our bullshit. For example, we have a strict, county-wide no-smoking policy. If a kid gets caught smoking, he gets suspended, has to take mandatory smoking classes and must perform after-school community service, such as emptying trash cans and cleaning classrooms. Who doles out these penalties? The same teachers and administrators who sneak smokes in the darkened janitor rooms all day. Keep in mind that all school grounds have been mandated "Smoke Free Areas" in our state, which just happens to be one of the largest tobacco-growing states in the country. Maybe these ashen-faced walking tumors at least multi-task while they’re down there working on their cancers. Perhaps, while they are coughing up those Jupiter-sized hunks of black tar phlegm, they fill out suspension papers on a caught-smoking student while they suck every last carcinogen out of the day’s 27th Newport. Wonder how a kid feels when he gets yelled at for smoking by a yellow-toothed, diarrhea-breathed teacher whose lungs are the color of a cafeteria hamburger and whose clothes smell like props used in the movie Backdraft.

We’ll lecture the kids on the evils of alcohol, then we’ll retire to the teachers’ lounge on Fridays for a spirited game of “Who’s more hungover from Thursday night’s 8-hour beerfest at any of the local shithole bars?” One local bar actually puts the message “Thursday Night is Teachers Night” on their outside message board. The bar is located on the main highway that runs through the county. Pay no attention to that sign, kids, as you drive to your punitive "Alcohol Awareness" class.

Right now there is a big push to make kids aware of the dangers of binge-drinking. But on the last day of school, the district organizes an (unofficial, of course) no-holds-barred beer and cumfest that runs from 4 p.m. until the last drunk is done puking in the parking lot just before dawn. Beers are a buck, and doing the Electric Slide is free, all 37 times they play that irritating piece of shit song. The past couple of years saw several teachers find their cars the victims of parking lot hit-and-runs, and one teacher rolled his pickup but was apparently so pie-eyed, shitfaced drunk that he walked away unscathed. Where is this party usually held? At the Fraternal Order of Police lodge. What did you just say? Did you just ask, “And where are the cops while all this is going on?” They are the ones tending bar and slurring pathetic yet effective pick-up lines to all the similarly sloshed teachers who spent the past nine months telling kids about the dangers of alcohol and unprotected sex.

What can they be telling these kids all year? “Hey there, you little whippersnappers. Remember, don’t drink alcohol, as it could lead to dancing and laughing and, if you’re lucky, getting impaled by a cop’s semi-hard member at 4:00 a.m. one June night!”

Teachers also tell the kids to take care of their bodies and eat the right foods. Many of the teachers who preach good nutrition are also the size of Montana. During the first week of endless teacher meetings, I sat next to a woman during a 30-minute meeting on taking attendance. (Real tough stuff, that “Here or Not Here” bullshit.) As the meeting ended, the woman griped, “Finally! Now I can go get some lunch.” At least, I think that’s what she said, as it was kind of difficult to hear her over the rattling of her empty Doritos bag and the crinkling of her empty M&Ms bag and the scrunching up of her empty can of Coke. Yes, she had devoured all of that during the meeting, then had the nerve to complain about needing lunch. Then she went out and actually got some goddamn lunch, because I saw her come back with a 12-inch Subway with double meat. (I guess I could cut her some slack, because with that Michelin Man figure of hers, she ain’t gonna be seeing any other types of 12-inch meat hoagies.) Hey Louise, think there might be a connection between 20,000 empty calories a day and that Hindenburg of an ass you’re wielding? Lieutenant Fucking Bitters solves another mystery.

I could probably think of a way in which I am guilty of this double standard thing, but nothing comes to mind right now, and I can’t waste time sitting here trying to think of something, because I have to go call a parent and write up a referral about her little fuckwad sonofabitching bastard of a son who said “damn” in my goddamn class last week. The fucking nerve of that foulmouthed little shithead.

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.