Cutting Class: A Cautionary Tale

Like every blogger who writes things that are highly personal knows, or they will soon learn, there is a crossroad that you eventually find yourself in the middle of. I have always said, albeit to myself, that if people that I wrote about get offended then that's their problem, because whatever I write is exactly what I would tell them to their face. So far that has held up pretty well, ex-girlfriends have told me that I have portrayed them accurately, and friends that have been involved in some of the situations that I write about say that I tell the stories just liked they happened. The biggest obstacle, however, is when my dear mother began to read my exploits that I put down in blog form. Overall she finds it entertaining, but she is mostly shocked about how I hid my mischievous ways from her as a child. She asked me, which was very sweet, "Did I do a bad job raising you??" I smiled, gave her a hug, and said "You did an excellent job, I think I was born to be an ass.., I mean a doucheba.., Jerk."

Another rite of passage that my mother didn't know that I partook in was the age old tradition of cutting class. A few months ago before the High Schools let out, I found myself playing basketball at the YMCA with a guy who looked rather young. After a few games my curiosity got the best of me, so I asked the young man, "Hey, how old are you?? I'm just curious.." He looked up and said, "I'm 16 sir!" Besides the fact that him calling me sir suddenly made my testicles sag about 2 more inches and sprout 3 Grey hairs in my beard, I looked at my watch and asked him, "Shouldn't you be in school??" He laughed and said, "Yeah, I'm skipping today. 20 years ago when you were in school didn't you skip??" I threw the ball at him and said, "How old do you think I am you little shit!! I got out of High School..(counting on fingers)..14 years ago for your information!!" He gave me a look as to say, "What's six years you Geritol popping motherfucker??!!" I wanted to tell him that I never skipped, that I was a model student, but I couldn't do that.(Immediately I realized that if I can't lie to my kids, I will be telling them tales of me getting high, beating kids up, and the absolute mayhem I was involved in. It looks like I will have a little Courtney Love if I have a girl, and a miniature Bobby Brown if I have a son. I'm officially fucked!!) Anyway, here a few stories of when I skipped school.

Scared Straight: For some reason, and I couldn't tell you why, my junior high would schedule a yearly field trip to Colonial Williamsburg. This place, for those who don't know, is where they have many plantations that are still around from that time period and they have "actors" who reenact the people of that time period.(The clothing, the colloquialism, the whole nine.) Well, it was obvious the first year that I went to this place that it wasn't for me. I quickly realized that this wasn't a place that I should be celebrating, primarily because, I don't know, WE WERE MOTHERFUCKING SLAVES THEN!! The first year I harassed the people who spoke to us, I would yell shit like "Where are all the black folks at!!", and I took it upon myself to take a 40 ounce piss on the steps of one of the plantations there. Not only that, the confederate flags that were surrounding me offended the fuck out of me.(Rant of the day: People who still carry those confederate flags around, and justify it by saying "But it's my heritage", Listen, because I say this because I want to save your life. To black people that miserable piece of cloth that I wouldn't wipe my ass with represents lynchings, slavery, and any other atrocity that you can think of. So if you find yourself being choked with said flag by a miscellaneous black person, just keep that in mind. Jackass.)

Anyway, the following year there wasn't a snowballs chance in hell that I was going back to that place so I decided to skip school with some of my friends. We all met up at Carla's house were we raided her parents fridge, smoked marijuana so weak that it was basically oregano, and dry-humped like a sexually inexperienced 8th grader is supposed to. Her dad, as far as I knew, was a prison guard who was no joke but he was supposedly out of town. We were having a good old time when the door crashes open, and all I see is a silhouette of a 6'5, 250 pound man that means business. I kept looking at the backdoor to make a break for it but the man said, in a commanding tone, "Don't you fucking thing about it!!" We were in trouble and I knew it, I just knew that Carla's dad was going to contact our parents. He gave us what seemed like 30 minute lecture, then he said that there is somewhere he wanted to take us. As we pull up to this one building Carla says, "Dad, isn't this your job??" He said, "Yes it is. I want to show you some people who made the wrong choices in life and the price they are paying for it." I guess it was his dimestore version of "Scared Straight" and shit. We went by the various cells that were holding certain men, and Carla's dad asked one of the men, "Why are you in here!!" The guy said, "I forgot to pay a shitload of parking tickets!" Carla's dad looked a little embarrassed, so he asked the next man, "Why are you in here?" The man answered, "I refused to pay alimony so I spend a few days a week in here." Still embarrassed, Carla's dad asks another man, "Why are YOU in here??" The man laughs and says, "You stupid motherfuckers have me in here for a dimebag of weed!" Carla's dad soon took all of us home without saying a single word, to his credit I was glad that he didn't tell our parents. What lesson did i learn from that?? If you are going to do the whole "Scared Straight" thing, don't go to a motherfucking City Jail!! Go to a prison for Christs sake!!

Count Crackula: The most memorable time that I cut school was when I was in High School and we all went to a girl named Christy's house. I was excited about going to Christy's house because she might as well been a pinata the way she was letting dudes "hit it", she always had a shitload of food in her fridge, and her mother was a crackhead. OK, I know the last part threw you off. It's not funny now, but back then we all found great amusement in the fact that Christy's mother was a crackhead, not because of her addiction, but because she had to be the thickest, most corn-fed crackhead ever known to man. I know Christy was embarrassed by this but I used to ask Christy, "Does your mother sprinkle the crack over her pork chops or some shit? I'm just asking because she can't be smoking it, she has thighs like Florence Griffith Joyner!!" But looking back I figure that her mom was a newbie in the crack smoking game because they still had all their furniture and the food was still in the fridge, or that they still HAD a fridge.

We all get to Christy's house about 8:30, were we proceeded to play dice and smoke some weed. Christy was already upstairs giving it up like free lunch but I guess I was a germaphobe even then, because all I kept saying to myself was, "I am not down for sloppy 6th's. Fuck that!" Around noon her mother's boyfriend, a dude who was also on crack and in desperate need of some dental work that we named "Count Crackula" busted in. He was high as hell and accused me, I don't know why he singled me out, of "fucking his girlfriend". I denied it, and told him to fuck off, then he ran over to me and put a knife to my throat. I have to admit something, I have talked a lot of shit on this blog, but I was scared as shit at that moment. I was in High School for Christs sake, having my life threatened by a man that had to be in his mid thirties. I could tell the knife was kind of dull, but it was pressed so tightly against my neck that I could feel blood tickle down my neck and land on my shirt. My boys were telling him to get off of me, while he seemed even more irrational by the moment. When Christy's mom came in the door and asked what he was doing he momentarily got off of me to explain himself, then me and my crew went to that ass something fierce. I hit that asshole with irons and Tupperware plates, whatever I could get my hands on. When we stopped beating him I calmly walked outside and into some woods, where I cried for about 2 minutes, thinking about how some dope fein almost killed me.(I was 15, cut me some slack) When I got back inside this big dude named Rudy said to me, "You were crying weren't you?" I was embarrassed, and before I could answer he said, "It's OK, I would have cried too.", which made me feel better.

About a couple hours later we decided it was time to bring out the grill and get our eat on. The only grill that Christy had was a mini grill, that came up to the middle of your thigh, but that didn't matter to the hungry bastards that we were. We ate burgers, steaks, whatever we could fit on that tiny bullshit grill. Besides almost being killed by a deranged crackhead, and if I had slept with Christy possibly becoming ill from some very questionable vagina, all in all it was a great day. It was getting late and we all had to get home to make it look like we had went to school that day. Since me and Rudy were the last ones there, Christy had asked us to put out the grill before we left. For some reason, and I couldn't tell you why, I had the bright idea of pissing on the grill to put it out. An idea that Rudy thought was ingenious, not because it was clever, but probably because we were both high as hell at the time. As soon as we started pissing on the grill something was wrong, I guess it was a mixture of the urine and the hot ashes, but this yellow dust shot back into our face. I don't know why we just didn't move out of the way, but we squinted and moved our head back in forth in avoidance, as the yellow dust caked on our face and onto our clothes. When it was all over, we were covered in this yellow caked on residue, on our clothes and especially our faces. We both walked home in disbelief, with this goo on our faces that we never tried to wipe off come to think about it, smelling like a prison urinal. I remember walking into my house and my father saying, "What in the fuck happened to you?? Did someone pour pissy chalk dust on you!!" Those were some good times!