A is for AAAAAHHHHHH!!!!!!!

Sorry I've been a bit absent from Blogger. This past weekend was BAD. Basically it included:
- Drunken bingeing and purging on Friday (for some reason I can make myself vomit when drunk? Which kind of defeats the purpose because by the time I'm drunk enough to purge, I've already digested a ton of alcohol calories).
- House sitting for a friend, minding her two weenie-dogs. They barked ALL BLOODY NIGHT Friday (like they're doing right now and I want to feed them to a large and possibly saber-toothed animal and watch, and relish every second of it (I hate small dogs >:O)). Then they started up again after 1 hour of silence (at 6 AM). So obviously I couldn't sleep, was drunk and herbalized and feeling sick and disgusting and suicidal because of the bingeing, and for some reason thought it would be a good idea to watch The Last House on the Left at 4 AM while in that fragile mental state.
- I love me some movie violence, but The Last House on the Left was f*cked up. It left me deeply disturbed. I couldn't even finish the film.
- So Saturday I had a really really bad alcohol/food/exhaustion hangover and pretty much spent the entire day debating whether or not to just drive off a cliff.
- Sunday was slightly better, but then of course ended in a binge (on ribs and chicken wings).


So all in all, I've been tired, cranky, fat, depressed, full of rage, and I just want my mummy.


Work today was at least busy, so I could keep my mind out of dark places and crawl out of the head-funk. Between Boss bouncing from one case to the next faster than I can work, and him redecorating his office, I barely had time to breathe. He got fancy new chairs. I wish he would replace the chairs in the main office, where Other Secretary and I spend our days.


We have these chairs in our office:

Every time I look at them, there is the slightest quickening of my pulse and raising of my blood pressure. I'm starting to get used to them, but bad memories and classical conditioning are not easy things to combat. 

These exact same chairs stood outside the principal's office of my elementary school. When you were bad, teachers would sometimes punish you by sending you to sit in those chairs. It was like a slightly more humane version of being put in the stocks.

Forgot your homework? Failed a test? Talking during lessons? Mouthing off to your teacher? Wearing non-uniform shoes? It could be anything really, and some teachers seemed to enjoy sending their terrified students to the chairs outside the principal's office. You would rarely come face to face with the actual principal unless you had done something really awful (like setting off all the alarms of every car in the teacher's lot (how they figured out that was me remains a mystery)). Instead, you had to deal with the public humiliation. 

The principal's office was in the front lobby of Our Lady of Mercy, near the main office, the nurse's office, the library, the computer lab, the stairs to the gym and cafeteria, and four of the school's bathrooms. Basically in a spot with a lot of hallway traffic. When some delinquent child occupied a chair outside the principal's office, it was customary to taunt them, or point and laugh, or make unkind remarks. None of the teachers put a stop to this, because I'm pretty sure that was the whole point of sending a kid to those chairs. 

I spent a good deal of time sitting outside the principal's office between grades 1 and 5 (age 6 - 10). The first few times--in first grade, when I was sent to The Chairs by the supremely evil Miss Murphy

...I swear I nearly wet myself. It was especially stressful because you never knew how long you would have to sit there. Eventually, either your teacher or someone in your class would come and get you, but you could be left there anywhere between 5 minutes to an hour. 

By fifth grade, I didn't really care anymore. On the contrary, I liked being sent to The Chairs, because it meant time away from arsehole teachers and the even bigger arseholes in my grade (there was the same group of about 20 of us from kindergarten to 8th grade--IT SUCKED MAJOR BALLS). I didn't care about the ridicule by then, because I was so used to it. Occasionally, one of the priests or nuns would wander by The Chairs and then it really sucked to be stuck there because you'd have to deal with a stern lecture, or awkward conversation, or a terrifying diatribe from Sister Clara, or on one occasion, being invited down to the rectory by Father Carl for lemonade and sandwiches. 

We lucked out with the priests in OLM. They were all very nice and not scary. And even though they had ample opportunities and would never have gotten caught, they were not child molesters. 

Unfortunately, we had an overabundance of incompetent and cranky teachers. I will never understand why people who obviously hate children decide to become teachers. My second grade teacher, Mrs. Klein was an angel, but all the others were evil. We actually even had a teacher named Lucy Butler. PROOF that OLM liked evil teachers. 

It's one thing to be an evil educator, but many of them were also total morons. Not about their subjects, but about common sense things. 

I mostly got in trouble for not doing my homework, and not completing book reports and projects. This brings me to one of the problems I have with elementary and middle school educators. Many teachers feel the need to assign their young students homework and projects and things that students can not possibly complete on their own, without adult assistance. Okay, maybe once in a while that's fine; but doing it all the time is EFFING RETARDED. 

I know all the other kids in my class had nice normal little families with both parents living at home, and loving mothers who helped them with their schoolwork. But I did not. I had no father living at home, my mother worked and went out most nights after work so I hardly ever saw her, and my nanny was also the housekeeper and had too much other stuff to do around the house (laundry, cooking, cleaning, groceries, errands, keeping me from burning the house down or running away, etc.) to help me with homework. And seriously, what seven- or eight-year-old is going to sit and really struggle with homework that they don't understand when there's no one they can ask for help? Not me. 

So I just didn't bother. I hardly ever did homework assignments. Book reports and projects were either late or never finished. And not one single teacher ever thought to question why the weird quiet kid had academic issues. They just punished me for it. 

One of the evil teachers did actually go to my mother about my total lack of class participation and incomplete homework. Ms. Schiller, the "advanced reading" teacher:

She sent me to The Chairs more than any of the other teachers combined. When she eventually reached the end of her patience with me (this was in third grade, I was 8 years old), she dragged me out of class and into the faculty office and made me call my mother. 

Well actually, her exact words were "Dial your home."

I tried to explain that Mum was not at home because she worked, but Schiller-Beast would not let me argue, so I dialed home and handed her the phone. She seemed to have some trouble understanding Nanny's Jamaican accent, but she managed to make out that Mum was at work. 

Now twice as infuriated, Schiller-Beast demanded that I call Mum at work. 

I did as I was told, and handed her the phone again.

When Mum answered, Schiller-Beast proceeded to explain that I had not completed any homework since the beginning of the year, and that today I had not handed in the assignment that was due--a shoebox-diorama of penguins (Schiller was obsessed with penguins). 

I couldn't hear what Mum said, but Schiller didn't seem to very happy about it. Years later, Mum told me that the conversation went something like this:

Schiller: "This is Mich's teacher. Your daughter has not completed any homework assignments in weeks. And she hasn't handed in her project, which she had 2 weeks to finish."

Mum: "Okay.... ..... And?"

Schiller: [rapidly losing momentum] ".... AND this is unacceptable!"

Mum: "Well what the hell do you want me to do about it?"

Schiller: "... She needs to do her schoolwork. She needs discipline."

Mum: "So discipline her."

Schiller: "........ um.... but......"

Mum: "You're her teacher, for God's sake. When she's in school, she is YOUR problem. Deal with it. I have work to do."

And Mum hung up on her.

I sat in the The Chairs for a record hour and 45 minutes for that.