When I was in 8th grade if I had entered a maturity contest, I would have lost. The idiots that I hung around with have done no better. Back then, if we had to give a dime to end hunger for every stupid thing we did, the world would have been obese.
Eighth grade was the year of Three Stooges humor and escalating pranks. I don’t know why it started, but foolishness flourished. It was not uncommon to go to your locker and have it cleared out except for rotten apples or used lunch trays. Your stuff would be pitched in a nearby abandoned locker. Nothing like a good game of Hide-and-Seek to make you late to the next class. I wasn’t shocked the day I reached into my gym bag and found it filled with flour, and I am sure my friend wasn’t shocked when he reached into his to get his hand covered in egg yolk. Who thought Home Economics was an appropriate class for 8th grade boys.
Yes, I know, nowadays, we would be in counseling having people figure out what was wrong with us and tuning up for a round of “Kumbaya”. Back then, adults seemed to ignore it all as long as they didn’t get stuck cleaning up a mess. There were no cameras in the hallway, and no online postings were students “rat” on themselves.
Now, I will get back to my title. You can only do so many things with food. We upped the game to the psychological and into making it more of a spectacle. Back then, everything was handwritten, so you could take someone’s paper and use their signature by pressing down on the original and leaving indents on the new paper. All you had to do then was trace over the indent. Instant signature. This led to notes being left on teacher’s desks; the notes ranged from student love letters to telling on someone for some make-believe offense. Needless to say, they were effective in getting weird looks from teachers and getting hauled out of class and spoken to in the hallway.
I had been taking a beating for about a week from my friend Joel the Mole. The nickname had nothing more to it than a good rhyme. Moley always got to class early and somehow got me. He had written and delivered a note alleging that I was sneaking out the fire door and running around outside. All of this took place while our teacher Ms. Howe was out in the hallway or making copies. (We were the last room on the bottom floor and had a fire exit to go outside.) Well, Ms. Howe believed the note, and I had to sit up by her desk for the last week. I kept denying it. I even tried to reverse it by saying Mole had done it instead of me. No takers. Why she believed the note, I never understood – it was written from a kid who wasn’t in the class anymore.
A few days later, during first class, I noticed a strong wind outside. An idea popped into my head. Mole is going down the hole. We had a big English term paper due in Ms. Howe’s class. This was perfect. When I got to Ms. Howe’s, old Moley had gotten to class early as usual and stupidly left his stuff unguarded. No one was that dumb. Oh well, we all make mistakes. I knew he would be back quick. I rifled through his binder and found the term paper. I grabbed it and headed for the fire door. Just then, Mole started coming back into the room and booked it towards me. I opened the fire door and let the papers go. The wind did the rest. Mole ran out after them. Fool, the fire door couldn’t be open from the outside. I shut it. Game over. He was running after his papers as they blew right by the classroom windows. The bell sounded and Ms. Howe entered. She took attendance and was puzzled. "Where “is Joel?” she asked.
“Take a look outside, looks like he is gone with the wind,” I remarked. When she was through, his free afternoons were gone as well with a week full of detentions. Finally justice. And I got my old seat back. Looking back, I am not sure I’d define it as justice today. More like injustice for all the teachers and school employees that put up with our crap. Yes, this was an idiot show.