Karma & High School ...

Do you ever wonder if your bad deeds come back to haunt you? Now I’m not talking about things that you really never want anyone to know about. Rather, I’m talking about things you did that were just plain stupid and teenagery and supposedly had no real consequences.

I bring this up because I substitute part-time in the Amarillo school district. Most of the time the students are terrific and the problems that I do have with a few students have more to do with disrespect and uncooperation rather than anger or aggression.

Every once in awhile I get a kid who tries everything s/he can do to push my buttons, and while I manage to keep my pushed buttons to myself, sometimes I just can’t help it. Sometimes my choice is to get a little loud (I know, who’d have thought), and let myself be understood a couple of decibels higher than I intended.

It is then that I wonder about my past deeds and if I am reaping the harvest that I sowed when I was in high school. Back when I was a teenager, the biggest problem we had was smoking in the rest rooms or behind the school. Drugs were almost nonexistent. Teenage pregnancy was a condition that was quickly sent away, and school violence just didn’t happen.

So what was it I could have done back then that could possibly be coming back to haunt me now? Well, as I tell you a little about that, keep in mind that it was 30+ years ago, and I’ve grown up just a little bit since then.

Her name was Mrs. Hall and she was overdue for retirement. Her hearing was bad, her eyes were covered with thick lenses, her support hose sagged around her knees, and her short brown hair was curled just a wee bit too tight. Probably, she would have been a great grandma, but she was our literature teacher, and her favorite author was Shakespeare.

As so many classes today do, our lit class was divided by lunch, and the door to the classroom was locked to presumably keep our items safe. There was a window about a foot each way that sat just about nose level for most of her students. That becomes important later on.

It was during lunch that my class would conspire and develop the plans for the second half of lit class and poor Mrs. Hall. Spools of thread would be brought from home ec; green peas and tomatoes or ketchup packets would make their way from the cafeteria, and gum was the starting ingredient.

Remember the window that was nose level? That became very handy for the janitors because their arms could sometimes reach through the hole in the door when the window was removed, and ... if they were lucky ... they could unlock the door from the inside. You see, the gum was chewed, and mixed with just a little bit of paper, and the key hole was deftly filled with the substance. Poor Mrs. Hall would try to unlock the door only to find the key couldn’t get through the gum and paper combination.

The janitors would then be called and they would either have to remove the window from the door or take the door off it’s hinges. I cannot begin to tell you how funny we thought that was. And of course, we always managed to cut about 20+ minutes from class by our antic. It did no good for the principal to threaten us. Detention wasn’t so popular then, and AEP had not been thought of. Sure, we’d back off for a few days and then return to the torment of this poor woman.

While I do not in any way shape or form think Mrs. Hall was in any way responsible for our bad behavior, she fanned the fires of our delight by telling us about her friends ... her little friends ... her little green friends. These were not friends that anyone else saw, but were friendly little green people from Mars who inhabited her classroom.

That was the purpose of the peas. As she railed at us for jamming the door lock, we would spread the peas on the floor and pretend to step on her little green friends. I don’t know if she ever figured out the green gunk was just peas. I do remember how upset she used to get when she thought her friends had been hurt.

The thread from home ec was wound around the legs of the chairs and desks, forcing us to pick our feet up high to walk down a row. Because her eyes were so bad, she couldn’t see the thread. The howling of laughter as students sometimes tripped and fell was lost on her. We, however, were entertained.

We emptied the ketchup packets and smashed the tomatoes on the walls, telling her the walls were bleeding. From little green men to bleeding walls, we tormented that poor woman with every conceivable trick.

Poor Mrs. Hall didn’t even finish the first semester, but took an early retirement and relocated to a rest home. I never knew what became of her.

We were bad. No, we were very bad, and we should have gotten into some really big trouble. I’m confident that if students tried these same things today there would be no patience and no discussion regarding punishment. And that is as it should be. Times were different then, but bad behavior is bad behavior.

Mrs. Hall, if you’re out there somewhere, somehow, please know how sorry I am for all those days of jammed key holes, all those smashed little green peas, and all those tomatoes and ketchup packets smeared on the walls. Please accept my apology ... and please, have a talk with the students I will be facing tomorrow. As attractive as an early retirement might be to me, I don’t think any rest home would let me bring my son.

Copyright, Debby Willett, All Rights, 2009-2010