Why I Hate Teenagers

So here's where I tell you that the long-distance relationship has it's perks, from a married standpoint. I can't get away from J long enough to miss him, so I think we get bored. Ah, to look forward to getting laid - it's been awhile since I felt that. And try not to say that out loud to the kids, you know, by accident. I'm glad you do get to spend one more weekend with W and how sweet of him to take care of you while he's gone. Someday I'll get to meet him...? We should start thinking about next summer. (Although I'm trying to talk J into a NY trip this fall - Mom's fading and I know he doesn't want to go, but agrees that he should. We'll see. If we get back there I will definitely make plans to come out see you.)

It's dinner time now and I should start cooking but thought I'd share the text story with you for fun. I don't know what your school's policy on cell phones is, but at WRHS, there is constant usage and no real consequences, so teachers kind of make up their own rules (even though no one will back us in the end).

So I'm standing up in front of the class talking away, or whatever I'm doing, and I notice that Cody is reading a text message under his desk. I said,
"Hey Cody, give me your phone."
"Why?" (oh, do I need to type out the whole 2 minute argument here, before I actually got the phone? No, probably not.) He hands me the phone. Normally, I would set it on my desk, forget about it, then at the end of class, either give it back with a warning (to a nice kid) or not (to a dickhead). But on this day, for whatever reason, I was feeling a little goofy, so I opened up the phone and said,
"So who ya texting, Cody?"
"No one."
"No one. Hmm. Let's see." And, techno-tard that I am, I manage to push all the right buttons to pull up the latest inbox messages, which read "Mrs. M is a rug muncher." Wow. Ow.

I notice it's from Jason. Jason sits right behind Cody, but I know in my heart that this isn't a message from that Jason, because that Jason wouldn't ever write something like that, that Jason can barely make eye contact with a worm he's so shy. "Hmm. Jason." I look up, at Cody, at Jason. "Really? Who's Jason? Because I know it's not our Jason. He wouldn't write something like this."
"Nobody" Cody says.
And then the chorus, from the whole class, begins. "What's it say? Read it! Read it out loud! What'd he say?"
"Nobody." I say. "Well it must be somebody, because they texted you."
Cody says, squirming a little, "I don't know his last name."
"Really?" I raise my eyebrows in surprise. "You've got friends who know your number and you don't know their last names?"
Cody's getting nervous. "It's some guy I met at the skatepark."
"And he knows me?" I'm shocked. Weird.
Cody says "No."
"Oh, so this is a different Mrs. M?" And then, again, the whole class starts up,
"What's it say? Read it! Read it out loud! What'd he say?"
"No, I don't know. I don't even know the guy." Cody protests, all but shouting.
At this point, I decide not to argue with him anymore and put the phone down on my desk. At that very moment, Zach, major-dork-who-thinks-he's-major-cool, raises his hand.
"Yeah, Zach?"
"I know what it says."
I think, God you're an idiot. Shut up. Drop it. "Really. You do. How do you know what it says?"
And then Zach, in all his geeky glory, clarifying every reason he has no friends, blurts out, "Jason told me." Wow. Good one, Zach. "It says M's a rug muncher!" Quite proud of himself, before I can stop it coming out of his mouth. The class erupts in simultaneous laughter (the boys) and gasps of disbelief (the girls) while I stand there trying to maintain my composure. I grab it (my composure) with both hands and hang on for dear life, bringing the class back to focus.
"Jason, give me your phone. You and Cody, go sit in the hall."
Class ends shortly thereafter and I call the two back into the room. I was f***ig livid; absolutely blew a gasket on both of them, saying something like "Jason, you're not the person I thought you were." (ouch). "I'm going to have to give your phones to Mr. U and he'll take it from here. For now, both of you, get out of my room."
As soon as the halls had cleared, my good friend SA walks into my room and I start in with the whole story, showing him the text. We're both laughing hysterically but I'm still really pissed. Other teachers stop in and before long, everyone in my pod has heard the story. So I get my stuff together and as I'm heading out the door, my friend BB joins up with me in the hall to walk down to the office with me. She's half-laughing, half trying to be sympathetic, and I finally say,
"Oh, I don't know. God, they're just kids. Did I overreact? U's gonna kick their butts."
BB says, "Overreact? How?
"I don't know. I mean, he could have said something really bad." BB stops walking and looks at me in surprise.
"Like WHAT for instance?" And then, suddenly, her look changes and she says, very slowly, "A, do you even know what rug muncher means?" And it's in that moment, half-way down the stairwell, as I see her face, that it actually registers. I really didn't know what it meant...until that second. I just knew it wasn't nice and I should be upset by it. But right then, as I made sense of the actual words, I started laughing (we both did) so hard we cried. When I finished telling the story to my VP, and handed over the phones, he says,
"Well, A, I have to say, I think you handled the situation very well under the circumstatnces. I'm proud of you." That's when I told him the part about how I didn't know what it meant and he roared. "Jason's lucky day." he says. Indeed.

So that's my teacher story of the year. Gotta go get dinner started. Love, A