BLOWOUT IN THE BAND ROOM!
Lascivious Goings-On At Our Hero’s Alma Mater (One Of ‘Em, Anyway)
The other day, I got some shocking news. Not the kind of shocking news where the doctor calls you into his office and says, “Fizz, you’re going to have to quit drinking.” Or the kind of shocking news that results in several lifelong friends no longer speaking to each other. No, what I got was the kind of shocking news that makes you prick your ears up and suddenly forget you shouldn’t give a damn.
Although I have been out of the public school system for a good six years (well, okay, some of them weren’t that good), I still have sources inside the walls of academe, if you will. Sources who would like to be nameless, even as they spread the scandalous tale to anybody who’d listen. Well, shit, the TV news people got ahold of it soon enough anyway. What happened was this: at little old Seaford (Delaware) Middle School, a music teacher dimmed the lights and showed the class a video. And while he was doing that, and whatever else teachers do when they show videos (sleeping?), an 11-year-old girl gave a 13-year-old boy a blowjob in the back of the room. No! Not my little hometown middle school! Yes indeed!
Actually, I can barely contain my glee. We’ve all heard the reports that oral sex is all the rage in high school, and that the trend is trickling down (HAR!) to junior high. I’ve read several stories of similar frisky doings taking place at other schools throughout the country. Most of them seem to be in Texas. Hmmmm? Hmmmm!
Anyway, I love a good scandal like this, and plus, this one had racial overtones (the girl was white, the boy wasn’t) that make the story even juicier. It’s just the sort of thing people would be shocked by, and not believe such activity could be taking place in THEIR quiet neck of the woods. I kept waiting for the news reporter to say, “One thing that still has officials scratching their heads is why.”
The Seaford school district tried to keep the whole thing on the down-low, but you have to figure that was an exercise in futility. The entire school was probably abuzz before the day was out, teachers included. The mere mention of anything remotely sexual could send a roomful of sixth-graders into hysterics.
And so, word naturally got out about The Incident. The girl’s mother declined to press charges; probably she was too embarrassed and wanted the thing to just disappear. The state of Delaware didn’t press charges either, and it’s the law to do so when one of the participants is under 12. But they agreed to waive that because the girl would be twelve in another month anyway. I’m sure that decision came after a lot of begging on the part of the mother.
Then I got to thinking about my own days at Seaford Middle. The blowee in this case was born the same year I was in sixth grade, which she and her little friend are now in, or were until they got expelled. I seem to recall there being a LOT of opportunity for monkey business in class, particularly in sixth grade. What seemed to happen a lot that year was, a teacher would split us into groups and give us a long, drawn-out assignment to work on, and then we would work on it for the next month or so, while the teacher made a show of supervising. And then toward the end of the year, they got lazy, two teachers in particular. They would tape the previous night’s episodes of “Square One” and “Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego” (kids’ math and geography game shows on PBS), and show us those in class so the lazy bitches wouldn’t have to actually do anything. Hell, they could even use the remote to operate the VCR! Just think what-all could’ve happened while they sat on their asses in a darkened room.
What I remember happening was that I would read non-school-related books without fear of detection, and Chip O'’rien sang a tweaked version of the theme song that went “Where in the hell is Carmen Sandiego?” much to our delight.
Even worse were those “specials” classes: music, art, gym, etc. It seemed like those teachers had their hands full even more than usual, since everybody pretty much regarded “specials” as a time for general goofing around. Like music, for example. At the time, I was already well on my way to becoming a music fanatic. What I remember most about sixth grade were then-current albums by Skid Row, Firehouse, Tesla and Metallica, which I played endlessly that year. We sure as hell didn’t do any of that in music class. In there, we still had to listen to those records of chirpy kids singing traditional songs like “Cripple Creek.” We also had to hear a rap that included the names of all fifty states. “Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia! And Tennessee!” Usually, we ignored the teacher as much as possible.
Speaking of music, I took guitar lessons from my seventh-grade biology teacher, the late, great Tom Darden (RIP). And while he was a wonderful guy in every way, he also liked to show videos, and he wasn’t the best at controlling the class. So you’d have 30 kids on the verge of puberty and bursting with sexual knowledge (mostly false) milling around in the dark. Imagine the possibilities! One time, during a fascinating film strip (complete with intermittent bleeps—remember those?) about the habits of the paper wasp, somebody knocked the projector off the chair it was balanced on. The picture sailed off the screen and the announcer choked in mid-sentence, and Mr. Darden asked groggily, “Wha’ happened?!” Nobody knew.
I sure didn’t. I was too busy eatin’ pussy.
Today’s inspirational song lyrics are brought to you by Love/Hate:
“Rock queen, thirteen, buxom blonde, bad dream. Let me touch you cookies, let me eat your cookies—NOW!”
