High School High

Okay:

My alcholic Uncle Brownie used to have this joke. "I didn't go to high school, but I went to school high."

I was 12 or something when I first heard it. I didn't get it. Of course, I do now though.

See, one of strangest things about teaching for me is what little shocks or offends me. Part of it is that I somehow have always chosen the most dysfunctional, potentially dangerous places to work. It has never been a conscious decision. It’s just always worked out that way. And I’ve taught at a lot of different schools in a relatively short period of time.

I’ve been desensitized.

But even before I began teaching, I’d had my own personal experience. You see, I was once a delinquent.

Let me qualify that statement.

I was not a “criminal” per se. At least not the bad kind. I didn’t steal. I didn’t hurt people. I didn’t sell crack. My undesirable behaviors were much more benign.
I smoked an inordinate amount of weed and experimented with peddling a few bags here and there on occasion. I did so much in high school that by the time I graduated from college I was bored with it.

And I became sexually active at 13. I never, as you know, got bored with that, however.

So when my students come to school high out of their minds, I can recognize the inappropriateness but not the urgency. Seems pretty normal to me. You’re always going to have your stoners.

“Damn, Johnny,” I might say. “You smell like you still have some on you.”

When they come to school drunk I might say, “You know, gentleman typically wait for the sun to go down.”

But the truth is I went to school drunk and/or high all the time. Once I got into some of my mother’s Puerto Rican rum. I was two sheets to the wind by the time I got on the school bus. By the time the homeroom bell rang, I was in the early stages of alcohol poisoning. I passed out on the bleachers in the gymnasium, only to be awoken by my cousin playfully jabbing me in the stomach. I jumped up and ran to the closest bathroom, which happened to be the ladies’ room. I couldn’t even make it to the stall. I went straight to the sink and threw up what looked like 2 pints of blood.

Because I was a sixteen year old genius, I had drank all that rum before 8 o’clock on an empty stomach so as to avoid getting sick.

I threw up once more before 1st period and eventually snuck out of the building and rode the train home. To this day, the smell of rum brings back those painful memories for me.

So, when they come in all smoked out, I don’t want to reprimand them and send them to the drug counselor. I want to put them on to shit I know. Keep some Visine on you. A nice, scented oil. An extra shirt in your locker. Tricks of the trade for the high school stoner.

When the girls come waddling in, five and six months pregnant, I don’t want to chastise them. I think to myself, “There but for the grace of God go I.” There’s no real reason why I didn’t end up getting someone pregnant in high school. It was pure dumb luck. I don’t shake my head. I cross myself and do a Hail Mary.

So, as long as they’re not about to tip over, I really don’t see any reason to get super upset about it. But maybe that’s further proof that I’m in the wrong profession.


Thanks for reading.

GOBAMA!

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Confession: When I was a teenager, one of my favorite places to high was on the dimly lit steps of the neighborhood church.