This story was originally published on Friday, September 30, 2005.
Substitute teachers are the babysitters of the educational world. They have no real prerogative to help the young people under their care grow in any way. Their only purpose is to make sure that you don’t die. As a student I realized this fact quickly from observing our many substitute teachers’ behavior. They had no idea what we were supposed to be doing in class and they didn’t want to take the time to figure it out. It was just a quick buck. This fact was most obvious with the subs who wanted to be cool with the kids- The fat blond college chick who told my tenth grade math class “I don’t know about you guys, but how about we just watch MTV until class is over?”, all Generation X hip-like, and who was fired an hour later. She was replaced the next day by another college age sub who wanted to be just as cool with the kids, but he approached it from the angle of proving he was a badder bad-ace than us. He hit on the young girls, he joked on the dudes, he called Cory Will “ole jerry curl head lookin self”, and he undeniably established himself as the alpha male of the room when he lifted me up by the underarms and pinned me against the wall for looking at him the wrong way.
These total strangers barely qualified to push shopping carts, not to mention teach students, but they were given complete responsibility for our health every time the real teachers couldn’t make it. There was a gorilla woman who repeated the phrase “excuse me” every time she opened her mouth. There was a toad woman, not a woman who looked like a toad but an actual woman-toad hybrid, who never opened her mouth, ever. She didn’t give her name. She didn’t repeat instructions left by the teacher. She just sat silently at the front of the class with that stern but content toad expression. There was a really pissed off middle-aged rock n’ roll sub who told us that we all “sucked”. Montgomery’s public school substitute teacher department was a Rolodex of rejects. We students couldn’t care less about the lack of professionalism though. The less competent the sub, the more fun our mini vacation was. There was one substitute who crossed the line though, and I took it upon myself to put her in her place.
One day in art class there was a little old black lady behind Mrs. Strange’s desk. She introduced herself by telling us to be quiet and make our art, which we quickly did. At some point I went to ask her a question and received a cold “Boy shut yo mouth”. I shut my mouth and observed the woman as she entertained herself by creating her own art work. All day long she had been grinding our expensive oil pastels into our expensive drawing paper, creating crude diarrhea-like images of flowers and cats and other generically pretty things.
B.T.W. was an Alabama public school, which means we had a very small budget and most of our resources came from fundraising. We could barely afford the art supplies that our substitute was wasting. From one piece to another she created artistic atrocities in every imaginable medium with a look of smug satisfaction on her face upon every horrible completion.
“Wow, that’s a beautiful still life”, said Cynthia, the class ace-kisser. Cynthia was a senior teacher’s pet with two goals in life. One goal was making paintings that looked like Baby Sitters Club book covers. The other was trying to get me in trouble. When Michael Boothe sat on the toilet seat that I left ketchup packets under, Cynthia told him it was my fault his shorts were all red. When Mrs. Strange said she would have the student that busted a stink bomb in the bathroom expelled, Cynthia tried to anonymously blackmail me out of fifteen dollars. She was a B.
“MmmHhhh it looks good”, lied the substitute teacher. “Hey boy,” she called me, “Go frame this for me.”
“Frame it?” I asked. She nodded her head, pissed that I didn’t say “Yes ma’m, right away mam.” I left my class work to “frame” the woman’s latest pastel masterpiece, a series of doo-doo smudges that I wouldn’t hang on my fridge if my mentally challenged kindergartner had created it. By “frame” she meant she wanted it matted, a very costly way to display student artwork in a show. Having a piece her size matted at Hobby Lobby would probably run about ten plus dollars. I cut the expensive ace foam board. Then I cut the expensive ace matte board. Then as I was about to wrap it in expensive ace acetate I realized my revenge.
With the tiny point of my pinky fingernail I carved a tiny word into the waxy surface of the still life.
P-E-N-I-S
Penis. It was done in a couple of seconds. It was so small that the lady would never notice it, but justice would be served because her work would be forever tainted. Tainted by a penis. I wrapped it in acetate and delivered it with a smile on my face. The sub cracked her first smile all day as she gazed at her professionally displayed crap. I returned to my seat, equally content.
A few minutes later Cynthia, the stank B, walked up to me with an accomplished look. “I know what you did and I’m about to go tell Mr. Meadows right now.” she told me, like a mark-ace trick. I looked up towards the front of the room where a very pissed substitute teacher was glaring back at me and shaking her head. “Do you realize that she was going to give that picture to her granddaughter? Can you imagine what would happen if her poor little granddaughter saw that word? What do you have to say for yourself?”.
What a stank-ace B. Because of her I was going to end up going to the principle’s office for the first time in my life. I would have to hear Cynthia’s speech from my teacher, my principle, and my parents. I swallowed hard as Mr. Meadows asked me to come into the hall and have a talk.
Mr. Meadows sternly stiffled a giggle as he informed he would have to tell Mrs. Strange about my crime. Mrs. Strange failed at holding back a giggle as she sent me to the principles office. Mr. Ross shook his head and giggled as he held up the tainted artwork and I explained my motives. He never called my parents, but when I did eventually tell my mother about the incident she giggled too. My school-assigned punishment was to apologize to the woman for what I had done, but she was gone the next day and never came back. She had slipped back into the substitute shuffle, and in her absence class became a little less entertaining.
Previously: The Hairy Hot Pocket
