On the scene at local Tilted Rock Middle School, I assumed I was just there to pick up the unused chunky erasers that are no longer being used in our e-learning society. I use them as door wedges so my dog can't come in the bathroom and stare at me when I'm doing my business, but that's not the point of today's story.
Burlap sack of erasers in hand, I made my way towards the exit when I discovered a very distraught child lingering the mostly barren hallways. I confronted the tween and asked him if he was okay, if he'd like an eraser, and if he had a cigarette. Through bloodshot, tear-stricken eyes, I could see something much more serious was afoot. I shook the child violently, enacting a strategy my mother used on me as a boy to get me to speak. Unsurprisingly, this snapped the boy out of his fugue state and he began to explain to me how he had just become a man in the most unexpected fashion.
The boy, let's call him Donald, explained to me he had been on academic probation and needed to take his math quizzes at the school rather than do them at home. A bad boy, I though to myself. Maybe we're not so different, he and I. He had just taken his math test (and you know how we at #BodybyBourbon feel about math) and his jaw dropped after multiplying 16,017 by 5. The answer was 80085. 80085. Once a boy myself, I know what it's like to finally see 80085 for the first time in real life, and mid-math quiz is hardly the time for a boy to cross that line into manhood.
The heinous tale continued when young Donald informed me the second question was 5,339 x 15. That's right. Now we have a pair of 80085. This heartbreaking tale lasted 8 more questions, leading our newly grown Donald, let's call him Don, to become a man that very day in his classroom. Overwhelmed by this new realization, he was reduced to a puddle in the ghost town of his former school. At that point there was only one thing I could do.
I screamed and cried for help, joining Don in his hysterical whimpering in the wake of a lost innocence. What are we teaching in schools now? Has e-learning turned our teachers into monsters? After several moments of no one coming to our aid, I wiped my eyes, picked up my burlap sack and sniffed on an eraser, determined to make Don's story known. We must protect our youth.
Scared this could happen to your kid? Want to leave a condolence message for Don? Do so in the comment section or contact us today. Sometimes this blog will hit hard. I hope you can take the punches like Don did, and most importantly, I did as well.
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