Who Should've Been Embarrassed?

I spent one disastrous year at the public high school in Gunnison, CO. My family lived there for four years, but I only attended GHS for my freshman year. I really loved the people at our church there, but the high school was something else again.

This is the kind of thing that happened there.

There were two guys in my Algebra 1 class that were forbidden from going to the bathroom during class. They had been taking drugs of one kind or another during their pit stops, so the administration told our teacher she couldn't let them go, even if they really seemed to need a break. The next day after they'd been given this punishment, the older of the two long-haired hippy wannabes walked up to our (annoyingly naive) teacher and told her he really needed to go to the bathroom. He said he knew he wasn't supposed to go, but maybe they could work something out. What if that girl (pointing at me) escorted him to the bathroom?

Surely anyone with half a brain sees the flaw in this. It wasn't the hall where the shooting up or pill-popping or whatever took place. It was in the bathroom. Of course, I wouldn't be watching for that part. So what did the teacher say? She said, "OK, [me], go with Tony please to the restroom please. You can carry the hall pass."

The hall pass was a softball with our teacher's name written on it. So, I walked with the drughead all the way down the hall, carrying a softball, and feeling about as stupid as an angst-ridden 14 yr. old can feel. (Which is pretty stupid) I stood outside the men's restroom, tossing the softball up in the air, while Tony did his thing. Then I escorted him back to the classroom. Here's the funny/tragic part...suddenly his drughead friend really had to go too. Hmmm. Could there be a connection?

Any normal person/teacher would've said, "Ah-ha! No, I don't think that's a good idea." But this teacher said, "OK, [me], please walk with Jim to the restroom." Then, in front of God, the whole class, the teacher and me, Tony handed Jim some bright colored pill looking things, and I escorted Jim to the bathroom to do.. whatever it was he needed to do.

That, and many other incidents that were much more personally painful, made it all too easy to leave that school at the end of the year, and never return. Thinking about that year still makes me feel sick to my stomach.