My jackass senior year as a jackass, jackass

With the exception of Freshman Biology, I was a pretty solid B/B- student through most of high school. Had I applied myself, I could've easily gotten straight A's. But I was getting by just fine putting forth minimal effort, so I didn't think it was worth the extra time. I was a natural learner, being able to quickly and easily memorize the information we'd be tested on and then forget the useful information as soon as I didn't need it; the useless information, I retain to this day and fish out of my memory when I'm playing trivia.

After 11 years of school, I was burned out, tired, and bored. I knew I had enough credits to graduate, and I knew I would be attending a local community college, so my senior year, I pretty much gave up making any effort whatsoever. Really, the only reason I was in school was for band and choir and to hang out with my friends. Though I wasn't all that interested in the topics, I signed up for World History and Physics, both accelerated classes, so I could be in them with some friends.

Would you take anything seriously if you looked like this?

To teach us about the Industrial Revolution, Mr. Walker, our World History teacher, assigned an exercise that taught us absolutely nothing about the Industrial Revolution. We were to draw and describe an idea for an invention. The class would vote for the best invention, and the winner would receive extra credit. There were some pretty lame ideas, which included a blatantly suggestive vibrating glove to help with arthritis, a remote control that could change the color of stop lights to green as you approached, and a mighty shield of balsa. My design was a Grammy that would sprout legs after the awards ceremony, and then proceed to find and throw itself into the nearest garbage can.

Prior to the vote, unofficial polling showed that the more serious an invention, the less likely it was to receive votes. About half of the room (the more athletic half) thought my invention was stupid and decided to vote for one of their own stupid ideas. The other half of the room knew my idea was stupid and wanted to see such an irreverent idea win. The secret votes were cast, and I learned that my Grammy lost by one vote to some lame invention that one of the football players created. But as people talked, I counted those who said they voted for me, and something didn't add up. Mr. Walker slid his hands through his combover and smugly threw the votes into the trash. I don't remember who it was that pulled the votes out of the garbage after class to recount them, but whoever it was, they were responsible for ruining my faith in elections and any respect I had for my teacher, as the recount showed that I had won by 4 votes.

Champ Walker. That's right, his actual real first name is Champ.

Mr. Walker pled ignorance, and I, along with my half of the class knew the vote was rigged, solely because I was being a jackass and not taking his class or assignments seriously. In retrospect, I don't blame him, but at the time...well, I really didn't blame him then either.  Actually, I took pride knowing that my joke of a project caused a 20 year teacher to compromise his ethics.

Physics was taught by a short chubby Italian guy named Nerio Calgaro. He bore a striking resemblance to Tom Bosley, who played Mr. Cunningham on Happy Days, leading me to walk into class each day and say in my best Fonzie voice, "Hey Mr. C!" Mr. Calgaro was predictable most of the time. He began every morning the same way; he would sit early in the teacher's lounge solving the newspaper crossword puzzle for the day. Repeating his same unfunny jokes again, and again, Mr. Calgaro would say, "No, Procyon," when asked if he was serious (Sirius).

One is Mr. Calgaro; the other is Tom Bosley. Who's who? Does it even matter?

He put up with a lot in his classroom, but one thing he didn't put up with was profanity. An accidental "hell" or "ass" would get you sent to the Dean's office in an instant....unless....unless he swore first, in which case he granted us impunity for the rest of the class period to swear as much as we wanted. Legend says that this only happened one time, where a few minutes prior to class getting out he let slip a "damn it," leaving the class with about two or three minutes to swear like sailors.

Physics was the last class of the day for me; and for this group of burned out, tired seniors, it was hard to take it seriously, even for our valedictorian, Mike Rock. Mike had taken the same approach to his senior year as I did, and by the time it got to Physics every day, Mike was done. He spent most of the class period making fun of Mr. Calgaro and interjecting wisecracks to me and Matt Jordan. One class period, Mike said something that caught Mr. Calgaro's ear and prompted a, "Michael, don't be such a jackass."

We had been trying to catch Mr. Calgaro swearing since learning of the rule, so when Mike heard this, he responded immediately with, "You cussed!"

The whole class gasped and sat on the edges of our seats awaiting our invitation to start dropping f bombs. Knowing the rule, and knowing where Mike was going with this, Mr. Calgaro took what he thought was the easy way out. "Jackass isn't a cuss word."

The class response was almost sheer letdown, except for two people, Mike and me. Mike began trying to debate with Mr. Calgaro, claiming that jackass is indeed a cuss word, but I saw a greater opportunity present itself.  "Mike," I said "stop arguing. He just officially declared that 'jackass' is not a cuss word....you jackass."

Since "jackass" was officially not a cuss word, we were free to use it, and not just for the rest of the class period, but for the rest of the year. "Hey, you jackass, can you tell me again how a jackass figures out centripetal force?" "Do you know the mass, you jackass?" "Don't be a jackass, of course I know the mass, jackass."

Mike dropped the class, so as not to ruin his 4.0, and I think I got a D.
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