The principal likes to make me wait. Could be anything from 10 minutes to hours. I wasn't even close to a priority in his book. So, I grabbed some paper and wrote some notes. It was near the end of the day was getting close so it could only be so long before I was finally called into his office.
"How have you been doing today, Mr. Divine." Principal Detrick said with a greasy car salesman smile.
"I'm not doing bad considering I'm half blind currently." showing him my best No. 2 smile. Being in the room with him made my eye pulse with pain.
"How many times have I told you to call me Jim?"
"I'm not going to call you by your first name." It seems disrespectful to me.
"Okay, but don't you think that is rude not to call people by the name they like?"
"That was not how I was raised." You don't respect that I'm showing you respect that is why we have this conversation every time.
"Nevermind, What happened in the gym today?" staring at me with those cold bored eyes.
"Well, I got hit with a dodge ball in the eye." It didn't matter what happened or why.
"And what else?" giving me a hard look now.
"I told Mr. Bronski that I was leaving to go to the nurse's office and went." He didn't care.
"Mr. Bronski told me you were rude, disrespectful, and belligerent. You understand that you can't behave like that here. There is never a good reason to backtalk or disobey a teacher." Giving me his extra serious face. He was right on one out of three charges.
"What if they are wrong?" The glint in his eyes said he really did believe that bullshit but I had to test to be sure.
"They're not. There is NEVER a reason to disobey a teacher." Yup, there it was. Why are stupid people always the ones in charge?
"Sure. I did nothing wrong." I'd already logged the conversation I had with Mr. Bronski and I'm going to log this one as well. He didn't really think I was going to let this pass without writing it down. The way the lawyer instructed me to. He was crazy I decided.
"You know you're not helping yourself, right?" He looked completely relaxed, a king in charge of his kingdom. I'm sure this won't help me. You can't win against someone who would slit their own throat to hurt you.
"I have not done anything wrong." I hated repeating myself.
"This is not the first, second, or third time you have disrespected a facility member. If it happens again you are suspended from school for the next two weeks." If I said anything he would talk over me to make his point. "We are done you can leave, now."
Beeeeeeep. And there it was the end of day bell.
"Have a nice day, Principal Detrick." It was hard to say that straight-faced. But anything less would result in trouble and I could use less trouble today. I was already going to have to explain the whole debacle to my mom when she got home tonight.
