Tactless? Me?

My sixth grade teacher told me not to go into law or politics unless I learned some tact and diplomacy. Not having ever learned tact or diplomacy, I sometimes feel compelled to find her (if she's still alive) and point and laugh at her. "Tact and diplomacy?" I'll ask. "Screw you, I never learned it and I went into law anyway." And with that, I give you this story:

When I was in the sixth grade we had a substitute teacher, Miss Massey. Everyone loved her. I hated her.

One day she wrote a list of topics on the board and told us to write about one. They were silly and trite – things like “What would you do if you won the lottery?” Then she brought out a cassette player and said that her boyfriend was a music producer. Studies show that music helps children think better, she said. Loud squeaks and strange moans emanated from the tinny speakers. Thinking music, she called it. Jazz fusion.

I wrote about a terrible substitute teacher who made her class write about trivial matters – like “What would you do if you won the lottery?” – and played distracting music reminiscent of crickets mating and off-key European ambulance sirens. “Names changed to protect the guilty,” I scrawled across the top.

After music class that day, the other sixth grade teacher took me aside. He was frowning. Frothy spittle flew from the corners of his mouth as he told me that what I had done was rude. Disrespectful. I should be ashamed of myself. He made me stay in during recess to rewrite the paper. It was a diversion from my normal lunch hours spent hiding out in the library or computer lab.

So I wrote about an evil teacher who censored his students’ writing. And about how the girl who was censored won in the end when her “disrespectful” article was published in the New York Times. Free speech triumphed and the girl eventually became an ACLU lawyer.

When my sixth grade teacher returned from her two-week leave, I was reprimanded. Her jowls quivered as she told me that what I had done was rude. Disrespectful. I should be ashamed of myself. She made me stay in during recess to rewrite the paper. I wrote about what I would do if I won the lottery. She said it was the best writing she’d read all year.