Mrs. Charm was so annoyed at Mr. Boy’s second-in-a-row email complaint from his sixth grade art teacher about his misbehavior in class that Mrs. C. put him to washing off the patio furniture in the back forty this morning. She was pleased that he did a credible job with only a minor amount of fussing.
When he went back to playing Wizard 101, I thought to mollify her by confessing that when I was in sixth grade I spent most of the year in the principal’s office. Well, actually, on the bench outside it. Which the secretaries called the “mourner’s bench.”
Well, said Mrs. C. who was one of those strange people who actually loved school, at least you learned your lesson. Oh, I did, I confessed, but not for quite a while. The mourner’s bench designation didn’t fit me as I wasn’t in the least repentant and, indeed, I spent a good deal of seventh grade also sitting there for things I am still loathe to confess in this public forum.
UPDATE: Fortunately Mr. B. does not attend sixth grade in Maryland. Indeed, I’ve been realizing for some time now that things I did in school in 1956-57, which were then merely grounds for suspension, could lead to arrest and jail nowadays. The country is far less free than it was and getting less so all the time.
THE TEXAS SCRIBBLER 