Body Count

I have entered the time of year I like to call the Death Cage Match. This is when teachers and students enter into a winner take all battle that does not end until spring break. The battle started the day we got back from winter break. It’s three and a half months of hate, cussing, crying, pain, napalm, and possession by evil spirits – and that’s just for the teachers. The kids are even worse. They skip all the middle man stuff and just pledge allegiance to Satan and then try to take over the world, one paper airplane, one thrown shoe, and one hurled desk at a time. I know what the first ring of hell is like – and it doesn’t scare me to die now.
Each day I walk through the steel double doors of my building, I brace for the inevitable Death Cage Match Battle for the very air we breathe. I yank my trusty Kevlar body suit on over my khakis and blue blouse, take up my shield, and tighten my grip on my battle axe (my preferred method of defense). Teaching is no longer an option – surviving is the only goal. And the sad part of this annual purge of common sense and civility, is that the kids also turn on themselves. Shit, they eat their own wounded. I’ve seen it. One kid admits to cheating or to stealing or to shanking someone else, and the remaining baby sharks can smell the weakness in their ranks and descend upon the honest (ha!) student and devour him with curses, name calling, and a general snubbing.
I’ve been wondering when the Death Battles would start, it’s been getting bad – but today it was ON. No more positioning for the best footing when the grappling starts – we’re “in the shit” now baby. Up until this week, the body count was minimal – a jacket here, a lost purse there, a thrown punch after lunch, lobbing iceballs at each other in the courtyard – but today – I had to pile the damn bodies so high I needed to hitch a ride on the shuttle.
In the last two days the body count – just for my team – is scary high and no newsreel footage to back up the claims:
• Five calls to the janitor (I feel for Jennie). Two pee puddles in the boys’ bathroom, a strange sticky substance on the wall of the boys’ bathroom (I did NOT touch it), an exploded Monster, and a massive projectile vomiting incident that include large yellow chunks.
• 7 bags of ice – three bumps on the head from locker ramming with no witnesses, a hallway tackle, a jammed wrist from PE, and one for a sore ball sack after the kid seemed to accidentally smash his own junk on the side of a desk.
• Two trips to the principal’s office because I suck at life.
• Five referrals to the principal’s office because the kids suck at life.
• One shanking with a jagged broken pencil
• One broken chair that was tossed out of the classroom and into the hall by a student pissed about something.