So, my dear wonketeers, Yr. Teen Kolumnist will not, in fact, be bringing you tales of merriment, jimmy rustling, and subtle spam for his Facebook page or even for exquisitely handsome men on mugs. I, in fact, have some somber-ass news. Amid the panic caused by the attack on Boston, I was recollecting on how goddam lucky I am. You see, I was among many of those in Idaho thanking whatever deity we choose to worship (Spaghetti Monster, Alcoholics Anonymous, whatever) that the bomb threat called into five schools (one of them mine), three hospitals, and three supermarkets last Thursday, the week before Boston, was fake.
I was taking my stupid-ass standardized test, and when I was two questions (TWO GODDAMN QUESTIONS) away from finishing, an alarm bell began to chime in the school. Now, drills never happen during standardized tests, but hey, it could be another kid pulling the alarm to get out of something. However, when we looked at the lab aide, and saw the look of pure terror on her face, we were ushered out of the room, leaving our backpacks with thousands of dollars in calculators, laptops, books, and stuff (including, for some kids, pot, and for other kids, maybe fake pot?) in the path of what we were sure was a fire started by the chemistry teacher (again. He’s good at those). We were ushered out to the parking lot, as is our sacred tradition in matters of school security, and were mostly complaining about the wind, sure it was a prank. We thought it was some bureaucratic mix-up when we were called out to the football field.
We were wrong. As we were walking to the field, a parent who was there to pick up her child heard my friend and me talking about a potential fire, and said simply: “No fire. There’s a bomb.”
It was basically a hell-hole. Imagine a moshpit combined with Black Friday, except substitute wind chill of 35º for music and PS3s. We were told to gather into circles for some damn reason, and then left sitting there, unable to leave without a parent with ID. Teen Korner for Teenz™ is written on my laptop-which-is-only-used-for-school-work-and-not-pokemon-emulators, which was inside the very building that may or may not be blown up at any second now. I was freezing my ass off, and my girlfriend was equally frozen. (Seriously, it’s flattering, but trying to set me up with your daughter in Portland is pointless. You know who you are.) Mostly, we were making jokes to distract from the wind and tension. Our favorite subject was the line of backpacks halfway between the mass of bodies and the school, a wall of cloth and paper that would magically protect us all from all the heat, shrapnel, and salvoes of pencils that would fly at us when the building inevitably exploded. (And again, some of my classmates were sneaking especially longing, bloodshot glances at their packs. No idea why.)
Everybody, except maybe 100 people, went home, although it was a challenge. The designated sign-out point was a claustrophobic nightmare, human mass packed tighter than a mattress in the original packaging. I was not picked up until towards the end (thanks, Dok), so I did not experience this, but I couldn’t see a damn thing, as the ground was shrouded by a wall of cotton and leather. At least they got to eat/be warm, though.
Looking back on this, I think the person who is going to suffer the most is -- or should be -- the idiot who pulled the damn prank. Some kid in Meridian (which was the first to receive bomb threats, the day before the 11 I mentioned previously) met some Australian asshole online in one of them sinful online gaming thingies, which we all know are for real responsible for all of this violence we've been seeing . He sent the Aussie some contact information, and then -- SHUT THE HELL UP DAD I AM WRITING HERE AND I DO NOT CARE ABOUT PRINCESS CELESTIA GODDAM -- and then the previously mentioned shit storm occurred. But after the bombing in Boston, there is no chance that this guy is getting off without the maximum sentence.
And you know what? I am very, VERY, happy about this.
At the school where I teach, we went through a phase back around 2003 where we had a bomb threat about once a week for 2 months. Nov and Dec. Oh and spa chlorine pucks being set on fire in a stairwell 2 or 3 times. They caught that guy and he was suspended for a year. We never did nail the threateners, though I had a good idea who they were. It was a stressful time.
I teach it. Could be worse.