Polluted And Sullied

A student was offended today by something I said. Surprise, surprise! All I said was, in reference to The Attorney telling him that that he just might kill him and dump his body in the river, "That would be polluting!" Go figure. Professional Victim said I meant that he was dirty. Au contraire, my dear Alphonse. Dumping things into a river IS polluting. Just like the duffel bag Problem Child said his dad found by the boat ramp. His dad snagged it and it was really heavy, and he thought he had found something good, like the time they found some binoculars and a fishing reel on the bottom of the river. His dad unzipped that duffel bag, made a face, and threw it back in the water. It was full of dead kittens. That's pollution.

Never mind that just before this happened, Professional Victim was ordered by Mrs. Hillbilly Mom to go to the custodian's closet and borrow a broom and dustpan for the half ton of mud that he kicked off his shoes under his desk. Never mind that the kid can walk all over the bus from tech school, sit in the lunch room for 20 minutes, walk down the hall to his locker, make a trip to the bathroom, step into my class...and the only mud is under his desk. That, too, is pollution.

A different student took issue this morning over my tissues. I gave her a stack of them last week when she was really sick, the idea being that I was spreading good karma, and her virus would thus avoid me. That part of it worked. I gave her the last of that box of Puffs Plus, and set out a new box. I might have mentioned that I have suspicions that somebody at Puff's Quality Control was asleep at the switch on the recent lot of Puffs Plus. They are scratchy and not very lotiony. But they are the exact same brand, in the exact same three-pack of the exact same boxes. Perhaps the wood used to grind into those tissue fibers was not virgin timber, but slutty, back-street, chancre-sored, ripped-fishnet-wearing, smeared-mascara, needle-tracked timber. Just sayin'. Or maybe China has something to do with it.

Anyhoo...Miss Tissue Police took issue with the roughness on her OH SO TENDER nose. She was not impolite in her chastising of Mrs. Hillbilly Mom, but how polite is it, really, to complain about the new tissues a teacher has bought for students to use after giving that student a whole honkin' stack of free tissues that she previously bought for student use. If this keeps up, I will adopt a new Let Them Blow On Toilet Paper attitude.

Because that's how I roll. And I'm NOT going to let them eat cake.