"When I was in 1st grade, I had a mean old crone of a woman teacher, as you know already, you rarely encountered a male teacher until 5th or 6th grade, not in rural classrooms. I was her star pupil, straight-A, little, conformist asshole. Midway through the school year I started to get on other students nerves, she had a special punishment for her new non-conforming asshole: if you really got out of line you got the darkroom. It was an extra classroom connecting other rooms. She would put you in and lock the door and turn off the light, it was darker than the inside of a cow in there, which strangely never frightened me. I would let the darkness rap around me like a blanket, until my eyes adjusted. No punishment here. I had dealt with the monsters in the dark. I loved it in there, made sure I was locked up once a week.

"I would have a cellmate sometime, a kid named Ricky, his father was an alcoholic, I wasn't aware of that type of father yet, was too young. Ricky was terrified of the dark. I would talk to him, try to calm him down, tell him, "Nothing to fear, just chalkboards, spare desks, and projectors in here."

"One day Ricky shit his pants, it rolled down his leg and got on the floor, I put up with the stench until my eyes watered. Then I started kicking on the door. The old bitch finally opened my tomb of turds, and started gagging. I never will forget her cleaning up the mess.

"I laughed until I thought about Ricky. He was rolled in the fetal position in the corner, skinny little dude, always wore cowboy shirts, the kind with the snap buttons. He was an alcoholic by the time we were in high school. I'm still tortured sometime when I wonder what became of him. I still see him in my mind’s eye of memory.

"I hate that Bitch."

-Ishmael.

Class, this is why God invented Vikings—even though they didn’t like Him—because they knew what to do with old crones like this.

If you have an adult treating you like this, do not go to the other adults—unless maybe that adult is a grandparent whom your parents kind of think is kooky.

Grease is the answer, the stuff that’s left in the bottom of that frying pan after you cooked up the entire pound of bacon and ate it. Collect that stuff. Smear it around the mean teacher’s desk so that she will slip and fall and hopefully bash out her brains.

Now, if it is a parent or at-home adult doing this to you, you must take action before you turn into a teenager, who may be punished like an adult. Stuff a sock with a hot dog, knot the sock up, grease it, and then lower it into their mouth while they sleep. Be sure to keep a screwdriver handy in case they don’t expire. If they wake up while gagging, use the screwdriver to pop a few holes in that thing that looks like a pipe with skin stretched over it in the middle of the neck.

Okay, now down to shop class!