February 1, 2005

• So ya wanna know why I didn’ clean de cafeteria yestaday.  Well, I’ll tell you why.  I’ll tell yous all why. Jus’…jus’ don’ go ‘round spreadin’ it, okay? Don’ want dis here janitor to get de sack, now, do ya? Aight, den.  I’ll tell yous why.

  
  

   

  
  

   It’s ‘cause de room next to de cafeteria is de principal’s office.  And in dat principal’s office is one o’ dem desks.  An’ unda dat desk was de principal…..heh….and dah secretary.  Get the pictcha?  Yeah, not a pretty one, huh?

  
  

  Well, dat’s jus’ what I saw.  Choo think I was smilin’ when I saw Mista Stolaski (mista as in he’s married - he ain’t no gentleman) foolin’ ‘round with Ms. Wutherberg dis aftanoon?  Think again.  Afta I saw dat scene, it seemed to me dat one of dose toilets I’d jus’ cleaned would soon be all dirty again, if ya know what I’m sayin’. I didn’ know whatta do. I mean, how would the Missus feel if she found out ‘bout dis?  Wouln’ be too happy, I reckon.  Her heart would be ‘bout as broken as locka numba 266. An’ I can fix a tonnah things.  Furn’ture, toilets, tiles, wires, pipes, bulbs, locks.   But a broken heart? Dat’s one o’ da few things dat I can’t fix up.  I’d ben workin fo’ mista Stolaski fo’ years.  ‘Bout one third o’ my life.  An’ I guess I always thought dat he was, ya know, a trustworthy fella.  Heh…trustworthy my moldy mop.  Whatta scrap o’ scum.  Whatta puddle o’ puke. If he was left on da floor, I sure as hell wouldn’ put him in de ‘cyclin bin.  Oh, no, no I wouldn’t.  Mista Stolaski? Cheatin’ Stolaski?  Eh, I’d make sure he’d git his sticky self crushed b’neath somebody’s sneaka fo’ good.  Hell, if only dat could be possible.  I dunno what I’m gonna do.  All I knows is dat Mista Stolaski doesn’ deserve his Missus.  Afta dat inc’dent unda his office desk….i ‘spect he doesn’ deserve shit.  So dat’s it, I reckon. Yeah. So dat’s why I didn’ finish cleanin’ de cafeteria yestaday.

  
  

   

  
  

   

  
  

  The above text was a monodrama I wrote last year for Language Arts.  Yes.  I turned that exact paper in to Mr. Oppel, my teacher.  And received it back a week or so later with a big, fat, delicious ‘A’ next to the title. 

  
  

   

  
  

  WHAT?!?!?!?!?!11/ AN ‘A’?!?!?

  
  

   

  
  

  You might be thinking. 

  
  

   

  
  

  YOU GOT AN ‘A’ BY IMITATING AN ILLITERATE JANITOR WHO CAUGHT HIS BOSS SCREWING THE SECRETARY?!?!?!?!?  AN A?!?!1!!?!1

  
  

   

  
  

  Why, yes. I did. 

  
  

   

  
  

  HOW?!1?

  
  

   

  
  

  You may ponder.

  
  

   

  
  

  Well, it’s quite simple, really.

  
  

   

  
  

  You see, a long, long time ago in a faraway land that its little inhabitants liked to refer to as “Middle and Elementary School”; teachers had resplendent gold stars placed on your tests and papers.  They had shiny, flawless apples lined up on their desks, so smooth and lustrous that they reflected the beaming smiles smacked across these teacher’s faces. They had Harry Potter as required reading.  Snack time. But most importantly, they possessed this thing called. This thing called.  What’s it called? Umm.  Oh yes.  A Sense of Humor. 

  
  

   

  
  

  A Sense of Humor, for those of you who don’t remember or who happened to have suffered a traumatic childhood, is, in MiddleandElementarySchoolese, the ability a teacher possesses that allows him or her to go beyond the rigid boundaries of the contemporary teaching curriculum and etiquette, do their own thing, make a ton of mistakes, and laugh at themselves as well as at you.  They try to please their students, not test them periodically.  Not salivate over excruciating unofficial contests such as Who Can Stay Awake the Longest.  Or Who Can Read The Most Pages Before Suffering a Most Painful Suicide. They do not punish and scold to merely reinforce their authority. They forbid all those Time Outs and Corners and Detentions, Suspensions, and Reports to the Principal’s Offices unless some truly unforgiving act had been performed. They let loose, taking their fists of fury and shaking them with rage, not at their students, but at that stubborn, unrelenting cement wall that blatantly separates education and learning from all that is considered fun and entertaining.  “Screw you and your alphabetically arranged seating charts too!” they scream as they telepathically set fire to all unreasonable rules and regulations, all intimidating scolds and monstrously weighty textbooks, infuriating the system even more with a quick “Who needs number two pencils when you can use milky pens?”

  
  

   

  
  

  In shorter terms, they are funny.

  
  

   

  
  

  The Funny Teacher is a rare and beautiful specimen.  ‘Rare’ because they are quite difficult to encounter and anyone can mistake a fraud for the real deal.  ‘Beautiful’ because these people can make you talk about learning in such a way that your parents might come up to you one night suspiciously after watching School of Rock asking “…Ehmm, does your English teacher happen to be somewhat…hairy?”

  
  

   

  
  

  Mr. Oppel was not hairy.  Nor was he a bum that transformed our entire class into some amateur rock band.  In fact, all Mr. Oppel was, was a tired looking, metro sexual man whose life depended solely on an eight ounce cup of Dunkin’ Donuts coffee.   But this guy, this completely conventional guy, could make you laugh.  Telling us that he only enjoys going to movie theaters on weekdays so that he has the entire place to himself. Telling us about that one time when some fat guy happened to be the only other man in the theater with him and nonetheless decided, out of all the other seats to choose from, to sit beside my teacher. And obnoxiously chomp on mountains of buttery popcorn for the first thirty minutes in, shouting on the occasion “OOF! That’s gotta hurt! Didja see that?” Telling us about how of course he could see it, you idiotic whale.  Telling us that the Mexican lunch ladies will never put the change back in your hand, only on your tray, even if you extend you palm right in front of their foundation-caked faces.  Causing our entire class to try this experiment, resulting in several Spanish curse words and the soft clatter of coins on plastic.

  
  

   

  
  

  I guess you had to be there.

  
  

   

  
  

  The other type of entertaining teacher is the fraud.  People, however, tend to get the two types mixed up.  A Funny Teacher involves laughing with the teacher.  With a fraud, you are merely laughing at them.  Or smiling out of pity.

  
  

   

  
  

  Such, is the following real-life experience:

  
  

   

  
  

  We were passing an obese, hairy pig up to his furry nostrils in manure and mud.  We zombie-walked to the next stable, housing yet another, equally massive hog.  And then onto the next stable, containing only a lonely, useless pile of...

  
  

   

  
  

  “HEY!” said my art teacher, Mrs. Zerbie, as she waved to us and pointed to the pile of hay in the stable.  There was a solemn moment of silence. Then, everyone nodded sincerely, politely certifying the fact that despite her failing attempt at making us fourth graders enjoy this agonizing field trip to Merry Meade Farm, it was nonetheless the thought that counted.  “Yes, I do believe what she just said was supposed to be funny,” my peers thought as they endured the image of yet another moldy farm animal, “Let’s laugh.  Maybe she’ll throw in a sticker or something.”

  
  

   

  
  

  Currently, I’ve been lacking in the Funny Teacher department.  What was once “Write a monodrama about anything you want, anything.   No boundaries here. Just make sure it’s at least a paragraph long, okay?….Hey, you can even add in a curse word if you find it necessary” mutated into “Five paragraphs. Double Spaced.  Topic: Mercantilism.  Due tomorrow, bitches.” 

  
  

   

  
  

  The only funny thing about that is that my teachers don’t actually call us ‘bitches’. They are thinking it, however.

  
  

   

  
  

  I wish the excessive amount of sleepily boring work that is hoisted onto our already sixty-pound backpack clad shoulders was the result of the pure sadistic nature of teachers today, however, this is highly doubtable.  I think, but I’m not quite positive, that they actually believe this stuff is in fact…good for us.

  
  

   

  
  

  Nuh uh.  We don’t need anymore structured essays and narrowed thesis’s.  Useless dates and perpetuating equations.  I need to laugh.  That is what I need.

  
  

   

  
  

  I did it yesterday.  I silently laughed to myself as some clueless space-cadet crashed head-on into the vending machine during lunch and moments later got up as if nothing was wrong.  I laughed even more, for some reason, when the kid turned around, pretending to be nonchalant, to see if anyone had witnessed the incident. Only to find me staring back at him with all-knowing eyes.  Panic-stricken, he stumbled away.  I laughed to myself yesterday.  And it felt like when I did it, all the stiff, numbing icicles clinging to the crevices of my usually solemn face shimmied off, replaced by a comfortingly warm feeling.

  
  

   

  
  

  No, I don’t believe I urinated in my pants.  I think I did something else. This thing.  This thing called.  This thing called. I think it’s called

  
  

   

  
  

  Smiling? 

  
  

   

  
  

  I think I did that.

  
  

   

  
  

  So, um, yeah. Dat’s why forgot to throw out my lunch in de cafeteria yestaday.

  • 10:26 pm
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