Yesterday I was helping a student with his English homework. The assignment was on reading comprehension; he was supposed to cut an article out of the newspaper, and then answer a whole bunch of questions about it. Les came up to my desk with what he had, and it was a big headline, a big picture, two scant paragraphs, and then "continued on A12". Of course, the article was from last week's paper and he didn't have the second page, so I said, "Wow, Les. It looks like you're going to have to start over." Les was not pleased. He threw a little ghetto fit, threatened to leave, accused school of being gay, and then finally sat down to do his work.
I found an article for him that was pretty short, and all on one page. We started to go through it, answering Who, What, When, Where, Why.
Who: High school principal
What: Shot two kittens with a shotgun on school grounds
When: Initial incident was Sept. 21, charges filed Oct. 30
Where: Koochiching County, MN
Why: Pissed off because a skunk sprayed his trailer.
As we read through the article, it just got more and more unbelievable. Apparently, this high school principal in northern Minnesota was living in a single-wide trailer out back of the school, and he was having some problems with skunks. He put a trap under his trailer, and (surprise, surprise) when he caught the skunk, it sprayed every last bit of its stink all over the place as it died in the trap. The guy was so pissed off by this (I imagine he was pissed at himself for being stupid enough to put the trap under his trailer. I mean, what did he think was going to happen?) that he went into the school, punched a hole in the cafeteria door, stormed out yelling "I quit!", then went back to his trailer to find the mother of the two doomed kittens in the trap with the skunk. According to his statement, he shot the kittens out of mercy, because they wouldn't be able to fend for themselves.
Les's comment: "Damn, why'd he have to use a shotgun, though? Shotguns make kitten-sized holes anyway. I bet he vaporized them kittens."
It's a crazy world we live in. I may teach at a school with gang members, drug dealers and ghetto hootchies, but at least I don't work with a "Kitten-shooting Jerkwad", as Les called him.
And in case you think I'm creative enough to make this up...
I found an article for him that was pretty short, and all on one page. We started to go through it, answering Who, What, When, Where, Why.
Who: High school principal
What: Shot two kittens with a shotgun on school grounds
When: Initial incident was Sept. 21, charges filed Oct. 30
Where: Koochiching County, MN
Why: Pissed off because a skunk sprayed his trailer.
As we read through the article, it just got more and more unbelievable. Apparently, this high school principal in northern Minnesota was living in a single-wide trailer out back of the school, and he was having some problems with skunks. He put a trap under his trailer, and (surprise, surprise) when he caught the skunk, it sprayed every last bit of its stink all over the place as it died in the trap. The guy was so pissed off by this (I imagine he was pissed at himself for being stupid enough to put the trap under his trailer. I mean, what did he think was going to happen?) that he went into the school, punched a hole in the cafeteria door, stormed out yelling "I quit!", then went back to his trailer to find the mother of the two doomed kittens in the trap with the skunk. According to his statement, he shot the kittens out of mercy, because they wouldn't be able to fend for themselves.
Les's comment: "Damn, why'd he have to use a shotgun, though? Shotguns make kitten-sized holes anyway. I bet he vaporized them kittens."
It's a crazy world we live in. I may teach at a school with gang members, drug dealers and ghetto hootchies, but at least I don't work with a "Kitten-shooting Jerkwad", as Les called him.
And in case you think I'm creative enough to make this up...