Adults, faux adults, and international affairs in Boystories

“Miss Mack! Miss Mack!” D’marr’s hand is up and pumping like a piston from the third row of boys in Penance Hall (as detention in a Catholic institution is sometimes called).

It’s a bumper crop today, almost an entire classroom full of bad choice makers. Spring semester is when the mischief meter cranks up in schools, especially high schools, especially in the senior class. They’re starting to see the end of the tunnel, some have even gotten their acceptance letters from colleges. They are done with high school already in their heads. I mean, high school is sooooo high school and they’re better than that now.

Honestly, if a way taller than me manlet leans over my desk one more time and utters that seriously non-original sentence, “But I’m eighteen now, you don’t need my mother’s permission for me to check out / come in late / take medication…” I’m going to go medieval all over someone’s butt. (Not my phrase, but one of the freshmen used it yesterday and I’m stealing it for a while.) Babycakes, you’re still a minor in the eyes of the school and we are accountable to your parents until you graduate or you tuition runs out, so just deal with the ongoing humiliation of institutional adolescence until May and then we never have to deal with each other again.
But I digress.

It’s 2:53 here in Penance Hall. The annoying detention festivities don’t officially begin until 2:55 and every eye in the room is on the two of us. Okay.

“Yes, D’Marr. What is it?” From his excitement I know he’s not just going to ask for restroom privileges.

“Did I ever tell you how I escaped from Iraq?”
No one else in the room seems to catch the irony that D’Marr is in detention for escaping from Western Civ class without a pass. That’s his special gift to me and I actually do smile against my better judgment.

What the heck. It’s 2:54. Let the boy have the spotlight for the minute that remains before the sometimes-bad boy torture begins.

“No, how did you escape from Iraq?”

“Iran, man. Iran!”

The room erupted as the clock ticked over to 2:55 and I began to hand out the punish work packets.

Last updated March 05, 2016