My seedy past and other indistrections.

Today I would like to tell you about the time that I got "in school suspension" in high school, also known as (cue horror music) ISS.  It's the kind of thing that I like to just mention without ever telling the story because as you will soon come to find out, it's not that exciting.
My senior year I was in a teaching class...as in, a class for future teachers (yes, I was even in the "Future Teachers of America"club where I went to a day long conference, designed t shirts for our team of goobers and won a bulletin board making contest.) It was a very exciting time in my teenage life (but not really.)  The class was taught by dear Ms. Peschel.  There is not really a lot I can say about dear Ms. Peschel except, bless her little heart.  Anyway, the thing that I loved best about this class, besides the fact that a whole handful of my friends were in it, is that the second half of the year was split into student teaching gigs.  There was both a middle and elementary school within walking distance so during this class period we had a pass to leave campus and go do student teaching to our assigned classes.  At the beginning of the year we each signed a little contract promising that we would not leave campus for anything else...do you see where this is going?  Most people that want to become teachers are honorable, honest and mature.  Not me, I like to live on the wild side. [clear throat]  So I skipped out on lunch a couple of times (which was directly after this class period) and maybe an occasional English class.  Who needs English anyway?  I'm never going to England (name that quote.)  Besides, when I skipped I was actually doing good deeds, like having lunch at another elementary school with my friend and her little brother, building schools for the less fortunate and feeding the homeless.  Long story short, one of my friends sold me out.  I was called to the principal's office and asked where I was on these "alleged absences".  Like a moron who was not used to lying, I pulled out my day planner (because people used those back then), looked up the days and tried to look as perplexed as I could.  Hemming and hawing, "hm, that's weird.  I really don't know why I wouldn't have been there.  I didn't have an appointment of any kind.  Hm.  Strange."  I flipped the pages around a couple of times just for good measure.  And just like that I was Martha Stewart.  They were making an example of me.  The cruelty.  Or maybe I just totally deserved it because I broke my word and a rule.
I was given 1 day in ISS.  One of my good friends that was in that class with me is now a principal at the high school.  That makes me laugh.  He probably gets a good laugh from watching teenagers being dorks.  Anyway, anyone that knows me knows that I do not belong in places like ISS.  That was for low-pant-hanging, pot smoking, homework non-doers that eat Little Debbies for breakfast (I only eat chocolate cake for breakfast now...back then I was straight as an arrow.)  So the day of ISS I made sure to wear my baggiest pants and big sweatshirt because somehow it would make me blend in and not make it so obvious that I was a goody two shoes, squeaky clean, never kissed a boy, love-to-hang-out-with-my-parents-on-the-weekends kind of girl.
Maybe I should have hidden a shiv in my geometry book for good measure.
I casually swaggered in with my baggy pants though my underwear was neatly hidden as it should be.

(Seriously, why isn't there a law about that? and since when is it awesome that people can see your underwear, your UNDERWEAR?!) and a smirk that made it clear, "yeah, I'm here.  I don't care.  What's it to you?"  I was faced with the first teacher on duty, my English teacher whom I actually really liked though he liked to tease me for being a goody two shoes Mormon, lovingly of course.  He was the only teacher that hadn't sent a stack of superfluous homework for me to work on.  My computer teacher, who genuinely liked to tease me about being Mormon, assigned me two papers, one of which was to define what my ring "CTR" stood for.  Ouch.  That one hurt just a little.  I made sure to bear my testimony nice and strong in that one.  I may have even made it twice as long as it was supposed to be.
It was kind of like prison, without the cable or video games.  We got two bathroom breaks and two drink breaks during the day, one person at a time.  When it was lunch time we were marched in a single file line to the cafeteria where we were forced to eat at one place (my awesome high school had a food court) and then had to sit five seats apart in silence.
And that really is the whole story.  Exciting, isn't it?  Do you still want to be friends even though you know about my past?  I would understand.  Or maybe I wouldn't.  Just don't forget that I have a shiv hidden in my geometry book.  Or maybe I don't.  I can be wildly capricious and unpredictable like that.

What's a post about high school without a picture, I ask you.

Forgive the quality of the picture.  This was back in the days before digital cameras, when people had to put their head under the cloth and hold up a flash.