Early Run Ins with the Man

I was over at This Fish today and read her story about a run in with her third grade teacher. It reminded me of a funny story about the first time I realized how two-faced teaches can be.

It was in second grade, and I had come to school looking oh-so-glamorous in my white skort, yellow and white striped shirt, and a matching yellow (ironic, yes?) banana clip. I was feeling like the cutest girl in school. Only one problem: my hair was not cooperating. I wanted it in a side ponytail, and every time I fastened the clip, there was a one inch section of hair (basically a way-long sideburn) that would come out. So I solved it by opening my desk and pulling out my scissors. I chopped the lock of hair off and threw it in the garbage, not thinking a thing of it. After recess, while we were doing our journal writing, our teacher—Mrs. Wade—called me and two other girls with the same color hair up to her desk.

Mrs. Wade asked the other two girls if the hair was theirs and they each said no. Then she turned to me and asked “Carrie, is this your hair?”

“Yeah.” I responded, not thinking anything of it. Plus, I figured it was so much better to tell the truth from the get-go instead of lying and having to deal with the double trouble.

Boy was I wrong! After listening to a ten minute schpiel from my teacher about how wrong it was to cut my own hair, but she called my mom as well! I knew that she’d called, so as I made the walk of shame to the car, I steeled myself for what was sure to be the ass-reaming of the century. Only mom was less upset than my teacher was. In fact, she was laughing about it. She just kind of rolled her eyes at me and I was grounded for the day. Plus she was proud of me for telling the truth! So, even though I was mad for having to stay inside for the day, I did get some reinforcement that it is good to tell the truth.

So yeah, that was the second or third time that my mom got a phone call from my teacher. Tomorrow I’ll share my penchant for beating up the boys.