Funny lines from '06

As we come to the end of another school year, it's time to reflect on another batch of golden moments, moments that reaffirm that I have made the right choice with what to do with my life. I am not referring to a child's eureka! moment when she finally grasps the concept of the subject and the predicate. Nor do I refer to that heartwarming Christmas card with the heartfelt personal message from a former student, nor the touching email from a grateful parent who appreciates that I put with her prison-bound son all year without once writing him up. No, I am talking about yet another pile of priceless, hilarious moments that left me doubled over with laughter.

I wish I had kept a journal over the years, because I could put out a sequel to the classic Art Linkletter book Kids Say the Darndest Things. Mine would be titled, People in Schools Say Some Hilarious Shit, Most of It Unintentionally, but It's Goddamn Priceless Nonetheless. Okay, the title might need some tweaking, but it would still be a good read.

Let's start with the teachers. One miserable old crank came to my room to pitch his weekly hissy fit about how awful and stupid and just plain hate-able the kids are. He has put in over 30 years at a job that requires him to work with kids, yet he hates - get ready for this one - kids. And he has the nerve to call the kids stupid. But back to his rant. As he ran out of gas and began to wind down on his weekly tirade, I told him that I hoped he wouldn't let it affect his whole weekend. He replied, "Oh no, it won't. I'll enjoy the weekend, then I'll take it out on the kids all day Monday." Nice, huh? And some people insist on calling us underpaid heroes.

I had a kid named Vigil this year. Not Virgil, but Vigil. When we read a short story with a character named Anvil in it, Vigil blurted out, without a trace of irony, "What the hell kind of a name is Anvil?"

A teacher down the hall shared this story with me last December. His students were doing some project, and one of the kids wanted a big magic marker, one of those magnum sized pens that could paint lines on a highway. The teacher, an African American male about 6' 5" tall, fished through his desk and said, "Here ya go, Cody, I got a big black one for ya right here." He said not one kid in the class laughed, but he damn near ended up with a hernia trying to hold in his laughter.

In the middle of lunch one day, a student vomited onto his lunch tray. As his tablemates scattered in revulsion, a vice-principal came over to see what the commotion was. When he saw the technicolor goo splattered all over the kid's lunch tray, he said, "Did you throw up?" When the ashen-faced sick kid nodded, here's how the V.P. handled the situation. "That's okay. You can get another lunch for free. C'mon, I'll take you to the lunch line." This man was serious. This man thought that the kid would just want another lunch. This man never asked about sending the student to the nurse. This man will not be returning to our school next year.

One day, for a reason I can't even remember, I asked a class a real mind-bender of a question: "Where do your parents get their money from?" All I wanted to hear was, "From their jobs." Instead, after about six wrong answers and then 10 seconds of silence, one kid shouted out in full confidence of his correctness, "The government!" I didn't laugh for fear of offending half the class. I don't exactly work in Shaker Heights, Ohio, where kids discuss which law firms their parents are partners in. In fact, more of our parent need lawyers than are lawyers.

One day I was playing a clever little game which required the kids to hold an imaginary ball. I turned around to do something at my desk, and immediately the imaginary-ball-holding student was in a tussle with another student, with a desk knocked over and the two of them eye to eye and holding each other's shirts in the corner of the room. After I broke up the scuffle, I asked what the problem was. Said a very serious imaginary-ball-holding student, "He tried to take my ball." Remember, there was no real ball. And yes, the kid was serious. So was the kid who tried to steal the imaginary ball. They were both serious. I had some serious goddamn laughter that day.

In January, while introducing Elie Wiesel's Holocaust book Night, I told the kids that Wiesel originally lived in the area known as Transylvania, which they might know from vampire movies. My point was that the area really does exist. One very smart girl in the front row said, again in a completely serious manner, "I didn't know Dracula was a Jew." Since I loathe anti-semitism, I refrained from making some completely inappropriate yet hilarious remark about Jews and bloodsucking. (Oh settle down. My best friend is Jewish and he'll piss himself at that line.)

It's a never-ending flow of classic lines when you work in a public high school. I heard a kid with horrible acne referred to as "That Nestle Crunch-faced kid." (You say that's rude? I say the creator of that line will be a published author some day. He said more in four words than some writers can say in two paragraphs.) I had the kids write what they hoped their obituaries might say if they lived to be 80 years old, and one kid's ended with, "P.S. He had a beard." I wanted to hug that asshole.

Then there was the special ed kid bragging about his exploits on the JV football squad, telling everyone who would listen how he could hit the A-hole like O.J. Fucking Simpson. Another kid on the team finally got disgusted and said, "Yeah, T.J., you're all about hitting the A-hole real good, from what I hear." Being a special ed kid, he didn't get the insult. He thought it was a compliment. So everyone was happy, especially me, the incurably immature teacher.

This is why I laugh every day at this job. I don't understand how some teachers go through their days without even smiling. The place is a diamond mine of shining comedy nuggets. All you have to do is keep your ears open and have the right attitude. As much as I live for summer vacation, when I think all this hilarity, I get just a little sad when I think of how it will end for nine glorious, sunny, alcohol- and weed-filled weeks.

In fact, the only great laughter I'll hear at the Bitters abode this summer will be from Mrs. Bitters. Every once in a while, I'll say something unintentionally hilarious like, "I don't think I'm gonna drink tonight." That one always kills.

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.