Violence...Violence...It's The Only Thing, That Will Make You See Sense

Dat-dat-dat-duh
Dat-dat-dat-duh
Dat-dat-dat-duh
Dat-dat-dat-duh...

Awesome song (a Track of the Week), that Violence from Mott the Hoople's All The Young Dudes album.

I remember when I was 27 or so, living in Albany. I had a full-time job outside of teaching, but the economy was so bad, I was encouraged to substitute teach as much as possible because there just wasn't enough work for me at my regular job.

One day I was subbing, and first period I had a non-Regents class (sweathogs). About half way through the lesson, I heard a very slight noise to my right. "Tink." WTF? A couple minutes later, I heard it a second and third time. I carefully scanned the empty area trying to figure out what the hell was going on when I saw a couple pennies on the floor. "Are these little fuckers throwing pennies at me?" I thought. It didn't seem likely, because I thought they would have hit me if they had.

I finished the lesson with one eye on the class. I gave them some problems to work on and walked around the class checking and helping as directed by the sub notes. When I got to the front of the room to the right of where I was giving the lesson, I got it. The girl sitting there was "slow", I don't know, maybe mildly retarded. Certainly not much to look at either. Oh, man. One of the 4 assholes in the back of the room was throwing pennies at her.

Later, when the regular teacher called to see how things went, he told me she was in fact a little "slow", that she was the daughter of another teacher whose wife had died of breast cancer a year earlier, and that all the teachers were just trying to help get this girl through high school. Of course, I didn't know any of that when this was happening (probably a good thing).

Anywho, up to this point I hadn't given any indication that I knew pennies were being thrown. After all, I am the calm, cool, collected Mathdude. I had semi-long hair and was adept at pretending to look in one direction while actually looking in another. On the next penny throw, I saw who it was - the short, punk ass bitch behind the huge football player. I told him to see me at the end of class in 5 minutes.

OK, now what? I knew how this would probably end. I would walk with him on the perp-walk to the office. I'd tell the principal what happened. He'd deny it, say I don't have any proof, and accuse one of the other sweathogs around him. He'd get sent to his 2nd period class and high five his friends on his way to his seat...or would he?

I had 5 minutes to think about it. Dat-dat-dat-duh, dat-dat-dat-duh, dat-dat-dat-duh, dat-dat-dat-duh...

-To be continued-