Wednesday 16 July 2003

In October 2001, there was a Friday afternoon in which later that evening I was pulling duty at a football game. The last of my students had left by 3:15 and I had three hours to kill. There was plenty of work to do in my classroom so I figured I'd stay on campus for the duration.

Not having had a cigarette since lunch, I went outside to have a quick smoke. I went out the back door from my classroom, lit one up, and went back to work. It was about 4pm and there were no students around... shouldn't have been a big deal.

As it was, another teacher saw me from his or her room... on school grounds, smoking. Heaven forbid! I took five minutes for a quickie and didn't walk all the way off school property to light up... hell, I was done with the cigarette by the time it would have taken me to walk across the street. This teacher, rather than say anything to me at all, reported me to the principal. You'd have thought it was a federal offense. The principal took me into his office to inform me of my misdeed. I promised that I would never smoke on school property again... and I never did.

In November was my second time late to school, prompting another talk. The strain of working so many days from 11pm through 3pm the next day was catching up with me. I left my job at The Company Store, and concentrated solely on my teaching. What a difference it made!

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