I originally began this journey of blogging by searching out prospective friends in strangers - those people I'd normally never speak to. Well, I seem to have had new people thrust upon me without having to do any searching, and where's the fun in that? So today I decided to seek out a nameless person I'd heard a lot about but hadn't met yet.
His name turned out to be Richard. He owns the carpet and tile store which resides right next door to our school. Sucks to be him, but we were there first. I mean, his business isn't just in the same block as our school...it's connected in the Utopian strip mall that also houses the Department of Economic Security, a bar, a church, a restaurant, and a temp agency for the unemployed. Oh, and that damn Water and Ice store that beckons my students away from class when they're bored and hungry. Bathroom passes should be called "Water and Ice passes."
My boss told me yesterday that Richard, who has the pompous epithet, "Richard who hates teenagers", installed the tile in our new online school. "Wow" I thought. I wonder if he really needed the money, or if he just wanted some sort of claim to our school.
Richard's aura has always struck me as one that screams, "Get off my damn lawn!" when approached by children. He calls to complain about noise, loitering, littering, basically all the things that at-risk teens, or teens in general, do. I'm absolutely not defending the poor judgement of my students but I know their thought-process: "If you don't show us respect, we'll show you what disrespect looks like."
Being impressed with Richard's offer to tile the online school space, I decided to walk over and thank him. I waited for him to complete his phone call and introduced myself. Our conversation was one sentence long:
Grumble, grunt. "Yeah, well control your kids better this year!"
Peace out, Richard.
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