Tag: idiots

This is why I don’t leave the house

On By Luther M. SilerIn idiocy2 Comments

I made a quick run after dinner, to the very same grocery store that I got a senior citizen discount at yesterday, because I needed even more shit for school that I should have just bought yesterday. I pulled into a parking spot and put the car in park, and at that precise moment the car next to me and the car facing them on the other side of the aisle both started pulling out of their spots at the same time.

My sense of proprioception went absolutely batshit, and I was completely convinced my car was moving. Have you ever slammed on the brakes on a car while it’s in park? I don’t recommend it, especially if the car already wasn’t moving, because it won’t help. I had a couple of seconds of full-on panic, trying to figure out why my car was moving when I wasn’t moving it, before it clicked what was going on.

I went inside and immediately walked past a former student, who did not acknowledge me– possibly because I had her in class fifteen or sixteen years ago and she didn’t recognize me, which is reasonable. I remember liking the kid well enough, and the last I heard about her she was doing fine, but man did she look like hammered shit today. Like, possibly unhoused and with the flu. Really, really rough.

I collected my various purchases, noting with some irritation that some of them were literally twice the cost that they would have been had I gone to Target, but fuck it, I was already there. I bought everything and went back out to my car, checked my mirrors and my back-up camera and started backing out of my spot, like a normal, responsible driver, and just before I got to the point where I’d take the car out of reverse the car behind me (so on the other side of the lane) starts pulling out of their spot, clearly not looking to see if the way was clear. I slammed on the horn and came within an inch or two of getting hit, but they stopped in time and pulled back into their parking spot so I could leave.

As I was driving away, I saw a large man in a Punisher shirt and bright red shorts standing on the side of the entrance to the parking lot. A moment later I realized that this man, at 6:30 PM on a Thursday night, in broad daylight and in public, was energetically masturbating.

I once watched from my fourth-floor apartment window in Chicago as a woman squatted in the entrance to a business across the street and took a piss on the sidewalk, but I’m almost certain I’ve never seen somebody just randomly jerking off on the side of the road at passing cars before.

On the other hand, hey, it got me a blog post.

Today’s highlights

On By Luther M. SilerIn Teaching1 Comment

I bet, at your job, whatever it might be, you didn’t have to tell anyone that taking their pants off was inappropriate. You probably also didn’t have to tell anyone to take the staple out of their nose.

I had to do both of those things before 10:30 this morning.

Christ and fuck ENOUGH

On By Luther M. SilerIn Teaching6 Comments

So remember last week, where two days in a row I had “man, today was a long week” posts?

I wrote up eight kids today– at least one in each class except for first and fifth hour, including four in sixth hour, and let’s be real, the only reason I didn’t write anyone up in fifth is because my chief shithead had gotten suspended earlier in the day– and in between fourth and fifth hour I broke up a literal fucking stampede of probably a hundred adolescent assholes by shouting “Get your asses back to class” so loudly that I think I damaged a vocal cord.

I wonder if that counts as a workplace injury?

It was not a good day, and if tomorrow is remotely as shitty as today was, there is a very real chance that I’m not showing up for work on Friday. I have four more days of teaching between now and Fall Break. Unfortunately, I also have twelve hours of parent/teacher conferences between now and then, during which, in accordance with prophecy, I will see none of the unconcerned, uninvolved, negligent-ass, ignorant-ass, broke-ass useless parents of my shitheads, and only parents of kids who I have good things to say about.

I literally told one of my APs today that we could drastically improve the building if we just expelled about twenty of them on the spot. Their parents think we’re babysitters. You know what babysitters can do? Quit.

Fuck teaching. I’m going to go write some fucking postcards.

EDIT: What the fucking fuck, WordPress?

I mean, okay, I put “assholes” in the tags, but still, are you fucking kidding??

Goddammit

On By Luther M. SilerIn Teaching3 Comments

Going through a definite dry spell again, and I apologize for that, but my head’s a mess lately. Last night’s promised Hell Storm fizzled, which I suppose is a good thing, but my students shit the bed on another test again today, making it two tests in a row where I thought they were going in prepared and then they just fell the hell apart. Even my Algebra kids got on my nerves today, and that never happens, and the day just never got any better.

Tomorrow my wife and I celebrate sixteen years of marriage and our fourth anniversary. I wish I was more excited; all I want to do right now is sit in a completely quiet room and stare at a wall for several hours. I need to not walk out of work tomorrow in the same mood I walked out of work in today, because I’m not about to let a bunch of dumbasses fuck up my anniversary.

Oh, and for tomorrow’s assessment (yes, there’s another tomorrow; long story) I’m literally going to put the answers prominently on the board and see if anyone notices. They won’t. Noticing appears to be by and large beyond this group’s capabilities. Especially when the things I want them to notice are hidden in words.

Sigh.

Look goddammit

On By Luther M. SilerIn PoliticsLeave a comment

Never vote for any Republican for any office ever again under any circumstances. The party has to be killed stone cold fucking dead for the health of the country. Enough of these fucking assholes.

In which I make a new rule

On By Luther M. SilerIn idiocy, TeachingLeave a comment

I did not go to work yesterday, and I left early the day before, and apparently my room did not get vacuumed either day. As such, there was a bit more debris on the floor when I came in this morning than I’m generally used to, both because 1) my kids are pretty clean for the most part and 2) the room does generally get cleaned every night. However, I keep a dustpan and a broom in my closet for just these situations, and as I was cleaning up I discovered something that I don’t normally find on the floor of my classroom.

A tampon wrapper.

That’s new, I thought. Not necessarily alarming, or anything, but … new.

What did prove alarming was when a couple of minutes later I found the applicator. That’s what it’s called, right? This thing?

It had been, uh, discharged, so there was nothing inside it, which actually was kind of alarming, because I’m pretty sure you generally don’t keep those when you’re done with them, right? So somebody either put in a tampon in the middle of Math class, which even in 2023 seems kinda unlikely, or they put it in in the bathroom, brought the wrapper and the applicator back to class with them, and then dropped it on the floor? Or was there a tampon floating around the room somewhere as well?

I didn’t find the tampon.

Fast forward to 6th hour. One of my Honors groups. My favorite class, but I will deny it if you tell them that. They are fucking obnoxious, but they’re somehow obnoxious in exactly the right way? I’m not sure how to explain it.

Anyway, after hearing someone saying something about “the tampon yesterday,” I investigated, and … well, now there’s a new rule in my classroom. No one who does not possess the proper body parts to successfully use a tampon is allowed to use, distribute, touch, throw, or taste tampons in my classroom, nor are they allowed to say the word “tampon,” given that I heard it more in class today than in the entirety of my teaching career up until today. And those verbs? I needed all of those verbs.

Also, I discovered that one of my boys was unaware that there was a difference between a tampon and an IUD, and in fact thought both were contraceptives.

Anybody else wanna teach middle school?

In which it is time to be done now

On By Luther M. SilerIn idiocy1 Comment

I need y’all to understand that, with five days of school and only three days of instruction left, I am doing literally third grade material with my students right now. We’re doing area of 2-dimensional shapes, something my son, who is in third grade, was doing earlier this year. And they can’t do it, and I’m well beyond the point where I’m particularly concerned about whether it’s an issue of ability or volition, because this shit is too fucking simple for you to be failing even if you don’t give a shit any longer.

Those are actually the first five questions on my assignment for tomorrow. The last, if you don’t recognize it, is a TikTok reference. It is a meme referencing someone who has had something simple explained to them and they somehow still do not understand it. They’ll get it.

Sunday miscellany

On By Luther M. SilerIn TeachingLeave a comment

This has potential to be a really, really important week, both for reasons that are obvious and I can talk about and at least one or two that aren’t. I’m kind of in a place where I want to just put my head down and sleep through it and find out a week from now what happened.

The school board is meeting tomorrow, and supposedly they are going to vote to let us know what the plan is for the next few weeks, which is good, because school starts on the 12th. I will probably head into work at least once this week, if for no better reason than to move my stuff into my new classroom, in a pile in a corner if nothing else. I am not going to put any effort into decorating my classroom this year, simply because I don’t expect to be in my classroom this year. My district’s plan has gone from “we’re back in person, but parents can opt their kids out, and we’ll find teachers for those kids” to “we are going to be virtual for two weeks to get kids used to the rules about masks” to a document that I was emailed by my principal today that at one point uses the word if to describe returning to school in-person. I am fully expecting to find out that we are virtual for the first nine weeks, I am predicting we will not return to school at all in 2020, and while I’m not willing to make it an official prediction yet I would not be surprised at all if we don’t return at all during this school year, because none of this is fixable with the current administration in office, and it’ll be February at least before President Biden (and Vice-President Harris, crossing my fingers) are able to start solving problems. But one way or another I ought to actually know something in about 24 hours (maybe 26) and at that point I can sort of maybe pretend to start planning.

To that end, I went to Guitar Center today, because I want to put my desk microphone on a boom arm so that I can keep it out of my way when I’m not recording and it’s more functional when I am, and while they didn’t have what I was looking for I was really happy to note that they are actually taking the pandemic seriously– the front door was opened for me by a guy with a mask and gloves on, and another thanked me for wearing my mask and explained that I needed to keep it on and my nose covered while I was in the store. Not a single employee had their damn mask on under their nose while I was in there, either.

Which: for fuck’s sake, people. I had to make a Target run afterwards too and by the end of it I was halfway to being a goddamned axe murderer. You motherfuckers have been told how to wear these goddamn things and you have been told why to wear these goddamn things. I am tired of stupid people.

Anyway, I came home and ordered a boom arm, because I can’t find one in a store and I’m not about to do what I might have done a year ago and check more than one place before having someone bring me shit. I wish there had been something else I wanted to spend money on at Guitar Center, but as a non-guitar person there just aren’t a lot of options.

(Okay, I took a look at a $1000 “podcaster recording bundle,” but I’ll never have a podcast because I’ll never have a good idea for one.)

Let’s see, what else? Eyes are getting better. Dropping the nighttime gel drops was a good idea. I’m noticing them a lot less often, which I think is supposed to be the point, right? Let’s go with yes.

I feel like I had more, but it’s fallen out of my brain. Maybe I’ll update if I remember something important.