Do You Smell Something Burning?

The girls asked for some stories about my students, so I decided to pull out one of my favorites from a few years ago. The boy in question is now a sophomore. I'll call him Ash, for reasons that shall be obvious later.

As a teacher, I don't act much different than I usually do. I'm pretty much just like I always am, just with fewer cuss words. So what all that means is that I act like a 14-year-old boy on his best behavior. As a result, I usually have a group of boys that love the crap out of me. Not that they have crushes on me, not like that. They just love to hang out with me. They see me as a buddy. So I usually end up finding out far more about them that I ever wanted to know.

During our Middle School basketball season, the boys' and girls' teams take turns having late practice. So when the boys have late practice, I tend to end up having a group of the boys who live too far away to go home between school and practice coming to my classroom after school and asking me to come play Uno or some other game with them before their practice starts.

Two years ago, I was walking through the commons when the boys called me over to play with them. I heard a few of them talking about a slumber party they'd had the weekend before. Because they think of me as one of the guys, they forgot to stop talking about it. One of them said, "I wonder how long before Ash's hair grows back and the burns heal." I thought back to Ash's class earlier in the day, and I didn't remember anything being wrong with his hair. So I just HAD to ask.

"What happened to his hair?" I asked. "It looked the same during 3rd hour today."

"Um, no, not this hair," one of the boys said, grabbing ahold of a curl on top of his head. "This hair," he said, pointing to the general area of his winky-woo.

I stood there, stunned that even as close as we were, the kids would tell me about that. I quickly put together the story in my head.

"Oh my God, were you guys lighting your farts on fire? What is wrong with you?" I got ready to tease them relentlessly about their idiotic obession with farts and fire and be done with the story. If only the chain of events had really been what I had thought. But that's not how it happened.

"No, that's not it at all," said one of those good kids that's always afraid he'll get in trouble for the slightest little thing. "We were playing Truth or Dare."

I know now that I shouldn't have asked. But, of course, I did. "Then how did Ash get burned in his, uh, there, if he wasn't lighting a fart on fire?"

The boys got very quiet and looked around at each other. In those few seconds, choices were being made. Who could resist the glory of being the one to tell a really good story, and who would not be getting their ass kicked by Ash when he found out they told me. Having made his choice, the curly-headed boy spoke up first.

"Well, Ash, he picked dare. So Brian dared him to light it on fire."

"It?" I asked. "He dared Ash to light IT on fire? And he did it?!?" For a few seconds, I thought seriously about getting Ash's IQ tested.

"No, not IT! Just one of the hairs, that's all," said the curly-headed boy. "So he lit one. But then they, like, all caught on fire."

I should have had something adult and professional ready to say, or at least kept my mouth shut until I did. Unfortunately, I did neither. "Didn't he think to yank one out first? Didn't he realize that if ONE would burn, they ALL would?"

"I guess not," said a small blonde boy. But it sure was funny though. He isn't going to sit right for a week!"

We all had our laughs, and the boys made me promise not to tell the other kids. As if I would actually stand up in class and say, "Guess what. Ash burned off all his pubes playing Truth or Dare this weekend!"

I did, however, tell all the other teachers.