Write Up

Re-posting in honor of Orme's recent reunion. Lily, Mandi, Charley and I will see you next year. Try to hide your excitement.

Over the weekend I found a "write up", those of you who went to my boarding school I am sure painfully remember the joy of receiving a write up. For those of you who did not go to school with us, it was a disciplinary notice you would receive (in the mail, even though everyone you knew lived about 50 feet away). You would be sent one if you had been caught breaking the rules, or as we thought of it, having fun. No smoking (a habit I think I only picked up for a year in high school to annoy my parents) and no kidnapping the farm animals for ransom. Blackmail is still as fun as it always was in high school, what can I say, they had no sense of humor.

Anyway, so I found a write up from 2002 in an old photo box over the weekend, written by a male teacher who shall remain nameless. A "write up" was slightly less formal than a police report but had novel-esque detail to it, attributing every word said in a conversation and sometimes even taking the weather into account. It wouldn't just say I was caught smoking behind the gym, I was caught "On a dark night, it was windy and the smell drifted to the front of the gymnasium; and that's when I knew it. Someone was smoking." If you're going to write that dramatic of a lead-up, there better be an underage smuggling operation or attempted homicide involved.

My write up I found said:

"I found Ms. Crook outside of her dorm on the west side of barnyard at approximately 11:45 pm. When I told her she was out of bounds and needed to return to her dorm, she told me she would do so when she was off the phone. Ms. Crook's attitude and behavior were characteristically very disappointing and I told her I thought she could do better. She then responded, 'So could your wife.' I am writing Ms. Crook up for bounds and insubordinate language and behavior."

So, apparently my reputation for being a smart mouth in high school was not entirely undeserved. If it makes me seem less gross, I am now friends (10 years later) with almost all of these teachers whose lives I once tried to ostensibly ruin. Poor people, I have a lot of apology letters to write.