How I Got School Detention

When I was in middle school, I lived in Hawaii.  Apparently, Hawaii has a relatively high tuberculosis rate, and so, listed among our school rules was the decree, "Thou shalt not spit on the sidewalk."  Well, when I was a teenager, I spat a lot.  Nowadays, I don't spit as often, but that could explain my drooling.  Anyway, one day, while at the school, I came across a puddle.  I liked to spit in puddles, as their wetness seemed to beckon to me like a cradle to a sleeping baby:  occupy me.  "Nice puddle," I thought.  So I spat in it.

Well, the vice principal happened to be right behind me, and she grabbed my arm and dragged me to the principal's office, sat me down, and began a painstaking conversation about why we shouldn't spit on the sidewalk, and alternatives to such behavior.  She then sentenced me to write a two page composition on "Why you should not spit on the sidewalk" and one period of cafe duty.

Being the subservient student that I was, I made sure to meet her very reasonable demands, and especially took great care to provide a fair account of every alternative to spitting that the vice principal had relayed.  Below is the text of the two page composition that I handed in to the vice principal.

Carly Wilson

Period:  None

Detention

Assignment

For Ms. Unni

12/3/1998

This paper is on why you should not spit on the sidewalk and why you should spit in the toilet, trash can, or in a piece of paper to wrap up and put in your pocket to save for later instead.

The reason why it is not a good idea to spit on the sidewalk is because you could get tuberculosis or some other kind of sickness from the spit, that would probably be dried spit, on the ground.  You see, if someone was walking along, just going on their merry way, minding their own business, and they suddenly dropped something right on the dried spit with tuberculosis on it, this unsuspecting, innocent person would suddenly become subject to this great and powerful disease, which is a very bad thing because you can die from it, unless you take medicine maybe, thanks to modern day research and study.

Even if you don't have tuberculosis, which I hope you don't, you should probably not spit on the ground because if other people see you spit, that might entice them to spit, and if other people see those people spit then they might spit, and pretty soon the whole school would be spitting and the whole school grounds would be covered in mucus and the whole sidewalk could be infected with strange diseases, especially tuberculosis.

Another good reason why you should not spit on the sidewalk is because you might have to write a paper like this.  You would also get detention, maybe even four days of cleaning the cafeteria tables and having cafe duty, and you probably wouldn't even get any ice cream or any kind of treat at the end!  But don't think of it as child labor though because you're not getting paid, you're paying them, for spitting on the sidewalk.

- Carly