Idle Ranting, Revisited

I know that you are concerned about your son/daughters well being in the public classroom - more so than about their actual education - but relax and know that the police officers and metal detectors at the door are making sure your children are learning how to live in a police state as well as eliminating metal guns from school. The paper-clip-rubber-band-shooter is, unfortunately, typically made once students have passed these metal detectors rendering the police officers who seldom move from their alcove useless. But this is just a tangent.

The real reason I am writing this letter to you - parents, grandparents, pimps, legal guardians, whomever you may be - is to remind you of the schools no tolerance policy toward cellular telephones and other electronic devices (this includes any type of mp3 player, iPod, discman, walkman, radio, any electronic device. If you are unsure, look and see if it uses a battery of some sort, if it does, it is almost certainly an electronic device.) 

No, I do not have a personal vendetta against VeriZon or  Apple or Sony. The problem is that these devices cause children to lose focus in school. To be honest, there is little need for your twelve year old to have a cellular telephone in the school, let alone the classroom. Now I know that you may have an emergency from time to time - the police arrested Baby’s Daddy, or Grandpa cracked his head on the way to the bodega - but I assure you, if you call the main office, you will speak to your child sooner than if you call your child while they are in class.

And this, is my main point. Please, parents, I am asking you to refrain from calling/texting your child during school hours. It is rude, inappropriate, and immature. At the beginning of the year, every year, your child is sent home with a list of phone numbers. The phone numbers for the main office, as well as mine, are listed on this sheet of paper. Use these numbers.

If your child is caught with a phone, it will be confiscated. Detentions will be served and the phone will eventually be given back to students. I know that taking a phone from a student can cause separation anxiety and cause students to break into tears and fits of uncontrollable convulsions. I do not want this to happen, but if your child breaks the rules, there are consequences.

Lastly, please do not come into the school to retrieve your child’s phone. You are undermining everyone when you do this. You are not your child’s friend, you are their parent. If you want them to succeed they need some education, as well as the knowledge that when rules are broken, punishments are served and sometimes, believe it or not, no one’s going to save your ass. So if you really want to help your child survive in the world, support the schools decision. Do not come in and retrieve the phone like a trained puppy. Do not worry, teachers may not be paid well at all, but they will not steal your child’s phone. It will be returned to them.

Remember, this behavior can be stopped with a few simple rules to both parents and students:

1.) Do not allow students to bring their phone to school.
2.) Do not call your child’s cell phone while they are in school.
3.) When a phone is confiscated, allow the school to handle it. The phone will be returned.

I thank you in advance for your co-operation.

 

Sincerely,

 

 

Principal C.Bob

I got heckled by the police today. They told me to move my car. And I told them to just wait; they did not like that too much and the She-Bitch behind the wheel started to get visibly angry.

You see, I had good reason to tell them to hold on and leave my car where it was. While driving, my car was struck by someone trying to parallel park - apparently she could not see the five feet down to the top of my car from her throne high above the pavement. Our two front quarter panels bumped and scraped and we got briefly stuck together. Finally, we broke apart and we both double parked. I got out of my car and started to walk back to her car to see what the damage was. I figured the cops behind me would just pull in front of me and park. Instead, they parked next to me, blocking traffic and rolled down their window.

"Sir you need to move your car."

"Yeah, hold on."

I left and went back to her beast of a vehicle to check what it looked like. She was incredibly apologetic and we both walked towards my car to see what the damage was. This took about thirty-seconds and the whole time the She-Beast Police Officer is sitting next to my car in her car with the window down allowing traffic to build up behind her. I half expected her to get out and start looking things over, but then I saw that there was not enough space for her to open the door and squeeze her fat ass out of the car. (Stop wasting gas, tanky.)

"Sir, ya need to move yuh car. Yer not allowed ta double park."

"We just bumped. We’re looking at the damage."

"Why don’t ya pull ’round the corner."

"I’m looking at my car."

"Well, do ‘ah need to get out and write up a repor’?"

"I’m not sure yet. Let me get a grip on things."

I am not sure what caused my indignance - perhaps it is my anger with Rita - but it felt good to give a police officer a little bit of shit. I think I felt pretty safe with all the witnesses she had blocked up behind her, and the one beside me, and the fact that the She-Beast Police Officer could not get out of her car.

There was really no damage, and I told the officer things were fine. She drove away to look for more skateboarding teenagers to heckle, and we all parted ways. Although, now that I look back, I realize I should have probably made her write a report just to make her do something useful with her life. Not to mention that it would have probably been the smarter thing to do, but being hustled by the police I was not thinking rationally. Fucking cops.

I have only been in my new residence for a few months now, but I have somehow managed to pick up at least three parking tickets that I know of. I say know of because who knows how many blew away when I neglected to take them out from underneath my windshield wipers…

I - along with many - hold no love for the police force. For some reason I feel that they just do more harm than anything else - tasering naked crazy men on awnings (YouTube), shooting people with wallets, tackling bike riders. Consequently, I hold an even smaller love for fake cops: Lovely Rita Meter Maid. You see, Rita is a bitch. She knows she has no real power and so goes around writing tickets to poor starving individuals like myself.

I will share the two most recent.

We have alternate side parking twice a week, and no one really cares if you double park for the two hours while they "clean" the street. I decided to take this option up and double parked. I went out to move my car at 1:05 and there was a ticket on it. For double parking. I was five minutes late. My phone number was on the dashboard in big three inch numbers with black sharpie. My address and buzzer were there. But that was too much effort. Rita had to give me a $115 dollar ticket.

My second ticket I am still trying to figure out. All along this area there are no parking signs, that list the day you cannot park and the hours in which you cannot park there. So as I pulled up to the grocery store I noticed a parking spot and parked. I then looked at the no parking sign. "No Parking Sunday 7-7 am. One hour parking only." I figured I was in the clear. It was Thursday. I was wrong. You see, I missed the key word except. The sign really read "No Parking Except Sunday 7-7 am." I suppose it is my fault for not reading the sign completely, but we have been conditioned to read the sign as I mentioned above - a list of the day and hours you are not allowed to park. Surely the sign could have been clearer.

So fuck you Rita. Get a real job. Stop giving out parking tickets no one pays. You are useless. Your sweater is ugly. Stop wasting our tax dollars on gas and get your fat ass out of the car and walk. Cunt.

I am too young to truly know where it started, but I remember the likes of Vanilla Ice - before he went hardcore - shaving his eyebrows in semi-ridiculous patterns. It looked absurd, and thankfully it eventually fell out of practice. I along with many thought the fashion of the late 80’s early 90’s was gone - finally laid to rest where it belonged. No more high waters, no more flat tops, there was no more house party - I was wrong.

Gradually over time these things have been slipping back into our culture. I can remember seeing an English Footballer - Aaron Lennon - in 2005 on the television with hideous lines cut into his eyebrows. And then again with the lines extending into his hair. Unfortunately, it was not just Lennon that displayed this out-of-fashion design, he somehow also managed to convince teammate Jermain Jenas to do the same immoral thing. And now for some reason it is slipping into our Western Culture.

I have begun to see more and more students coming to class with the same tacky designs emblazoned on their faces, and it always seems to be the more popular kids so it is only a matter of time before it becomes something all the children are doing. Thankfully, being a teacher, I have been given the chance to try and intervene. I have taken it upon myself - and I encourage you as well - to remind youths that the late 80’s/early 90’s were not a time to be proud of, and that we create our own fashion here in the States. We do not take fashion from Europe, they follow us in trends for a reason, let’s keep it that way.

Growing up in the country, whenever a pet died, it was given a proper burial somewhere in the woods and no more was thought about it. Maybe some flowers, or a small shrub, but that was it. Now that I am in a large city, with no grass, I am rather unsure what to do with a dead animal. Thankfully I personally do not own a dead animal, but I saw one last night. And to be honest, I am not even sure if it was a pet. There is a colony of feral cats that live a couple of doors down from me, and I believe it was one of these poor felines that got struck.

As I was out taking Dog #2 for a walk, a white Lexus came speeding around the corner and wailed this cat pretty good. Unfortunately, the cat did not die on impact and was flopping around the road like an epileptic girl, blood spurting everywhere. I went over to make sure it was dead and sadly gave it’s head a good final stomp. There was no rescuing this thing, and I wanted to just get it over with for the poor beast. Then I realized that I have a somewhat large dead animal on my hands. If I put it in a garbage can I will probably be seen and the cops will show up at my apartment and arrest me for animal cruelty.

I called the City’s help number and they directed me to sanitation. I filed a "complaint" - as they called it - with them and filled them into the whereabouts of this mangled kitty.

"Okay sir, where is the cat?"

"Um, like half-on half-off the sidewalk in front of 2243 or 2245 Apple Street."

"So is it on the sidewalk or not?"

"Well, it is sort of half-on half-off. It kind of died that way."

"Okay, so we’ll just say that it’s close to the curb."

"Sure. I just want someone to come take care of it."

"Well sir, that’s what we’re doing. I need to document this information and then sanitation will be down within two business days to pick it up."

"Two business days? Seriously? There is a school one block away from here. This things going to scare the hell out of some little kindergärtners, or at least get bloated and nasty. Ya’ll can’t get here sooner?"

"We can’t guarantee it. There’s lots of things that sanitation needs to take care, but thank you for your concern." 

"That’s real nice. Maybe street cleaning will get it tomorrow…"

The conversation went on with her taking my information and assuring me things would be okay. Street cleaning has not come by yet, so I don’t know what will happen to Mr. Kitty, but hopefully someone takes care of his half-faced body and dispose of the poor bastard properly, and not with a wire brushed street cleaning machine.