“Okay guys–I need your eyes up here. I need the ed’s (electronic devices) put away and your eyes up here. Guys, you need to stop talking, put your ed’s away and look up. Okay, Ratfucker and Insincere Dumbshit, I need you to put that way. I’m right here in your face, and you’re turning your bodies away from me? Put that away. Put it away. Guys, I’m six inches from your face, okay, here GIVE ME THAT!”
The kid wrestled it back. It was physical. I let him have it and said, “Get the hell out of my room.”
I sent a T.A. with Ratfucker’s referral– experience has shown that he’s inclined to throw them away. He threatened her the entire trip up to the office, and she told the vice principal.
I backed it up with an e-mail saying this kid needs to be suspended for real.
The kid was back at my class today–and I wouldn’t let him in. He said “Bon-bone told me you were being disrespectful when you just grabbed my phone without warning.”
“Without warning?”
“Yeah, you didn’t ask for it or anything…”
I got in his face–“Ratfucker, I was as close as I am to you right now… is it comfortable? Do you know I’m here?”
“I only wanted to finish…”
“I don’t care–it was over. You were being disrespectful, and then you threatened my T.A. Get the hell out of my room.”
“So she says.”
“Stay here until security comes.”
Of course, he’s gone by then.
And so on.
Another kid I sent out for talking got sent back because, in MY ADMINISTRATOR’S WORDS, “You’re being petty.”
And in the meantime, every day these motherfuckers are tardy. Every. Fucking. Day. I mark them tardy most days–and they don’t care. But what kills me is the time before they get there. The entire class just stares at the places I have to MOVE THEM FROM EVERY DAY BECAUSE THEY’VE BEEN TAUGHT THAT MY REQUESTS ARE PETTY AND INCONSEQUENTIAL and says, “It would be nice if the class could stay like this. Just like this.”
The kids who have been taught that I’m shit they step in by the administrator that should have my back walk in tardy and laughing, and interrupting me while I’m speaking, and all the shit that they think they’re entitled to do thanks to this spineless prickweenie who doesn’t think that one disrespect leads to another (including, maybe, this furious blogpost). The kids they’re hurting stare at them and look at me helplessly. They sigh. “Too bad,” they mutter under their breath, and then, when the the motherfuckers have polluted my room enough, they join in the hilarity. After all, it doesn’t matter. I’m nobody.
Their vice principal told them so.
***************
Okay, now that I’ve ranted against Ratfucker’s best friend, Vainglorious Prickweenie the bajillionth, let’s move on to happy shit.
For one thing, that class that I think I hate to the n’th level, actually has some decent kids in it–and imagine my surprise when they all stood up and started freaking out in the middle of a movie. All of them were boys, and they were all losing their nuts about a spider… “It’s big, Ms. Lane.” “It’s black and hairy. It scares me.”
Of course, by this time, I’d been pretty ticked by the whole Ratfucker and Vainglorious Prickweenie the bajillionth episode, not to mention hearing the kid who can’t spell his own name call me ‘petty’– a word I’m pretty sure was fed to him with a rubber coated spoon, so my ‘Pagan creed’ was left to shred in the wind.
I pulled my sweater around my wrist and beat that little fucker to a pulp, and when the kids asked, “Where did it go?” I scraped the mushed little body off my sweater and said, “It’s in the trash. Sit down.”
At the end of class, one of those kids waited until after class. “Thanks for killing the spider, Ms. Lane. I really hate them.”
*laugh* At least I’m someone’s hero.
*****************
And all that being said, I’d like to thank you all for following the link yesterday–it was awesome that you liked the essay– I may be doing a couple more of those between now and the 18th–they’re going into my presentation at the library. And Galad’s Gallant Daughter? I can’t thank you enough for telling me you liked Bitter Moon II–not a lot of reviews up yet, and, like all of writers, my feedback-blood-sugar is eternally low.
I’m also shyly pleased by how happy you all are that I’m actually working on RAMPANT. I’ll try not to let you all down. (And don’t forget, the Jack & Teague will be released shortly after–I hope you all like that as well.)
And now, after a day and a dentist appointment (Big T’s) and picking the dog up at the vet and Chicken’s dance lessons and a nutritious dinner by Taco Bell…
I’m off to knit and watch television with the big kids. Small pleasures, big enjoyment.
Lubs to alls of yous!
