I teach Kenpo Karate as a second-degree black belt. I also have an assistant, who is a first-degree black belt in her own right. I don’t own the gym. My instructor does, but since he’s gotten older, [Assistant] and I handle the younger classes while he handles the business side of things plus adult class.

We have three classes: kids’ class for ages five to ten, intermediate class for ages eleven to fifteen, and adult class for ages sixteen and up.

The kids’ class has just ended when a woman walks in with her son, who is thirteen.

Mother: “My son wants to take karate lessons.”

I shake hands with her and have her sit down with [Instructor] to fill out the waivers and get his measurements for his gi (traditional uniform).

Other students file in for the intermediate class, and [Assistant] and I get down to business. I take the bulk of the class, around fifteen kids, while [Assistant] goes with the new student one-on-one to teach him basic strikes and stances.

Not five minutes later, I hear [Assistant] upset, telling [New Boy] to do ten push-ups.

Why?

He called [Assistant], who’s essentially a VOLUNTEER, a “f****** b****”.

The boy’s mother stands up.

Mother: “[New Boy] can’t do push-ups! I don’t want him to be sore.”

[Assistant] lets him do the push-ups on his knees, but not five minutes later, she makes him do twenty more since he’s now called her a slut.

For reference, [Assistant] is in her early twenties, and the boy is thirteen. Not to mention there are other parents and kids here as well. It’s wholly inappropriate.

I walk over and ask [Assistant] to switch with me. As she does, she gives me big eyes and mouths, “What the f***?” I walk over to [New Boy].

Me: “Why did you insult my assistant, [Assistant]?”

New Boy: “I don’t like girls.”

Me: “What do you mean?”

New Boy: “I only listen to my dad or other boys.”

His mother confirms this to me, chuckling, as if raising a monster is something to laugh about.

Mother: “He won’t listen to me at all! He needs some discipline!”

New Boy: “When do I get a black belt like you have?”

Mind you, he’s been punching the air the entire time. This boy is aggressively hyper.

Me: “Well, it takes quite a while. I’ve been training since I was five and earned my black belt at twenty-one, so it took me a while!”

New Boy: “Nah, I don’t wanna wait that long! I want mine now!”

His chubby face is now red and sweaty from the shadow-boxing. The mother motions me over and whispers in my ear…

Mother: “Do you think you could give him one? Just to make him happy?”

Me: “No, sorry, he has to earn one. We aren’t a belt factory.”

Mother: “Well, he never gets told no.”

Me: “I’m sorry, but that’s not how we do things here.”

Mother: “I have money; I can pay you extra!”

Me: “No, sorry, we only give belts when they’re earned.”

After several minutes of arguing and conversation that leads nowhere, [Mother] snaps at me:

Mother: “I PAID YOU! GIVE MY SON A BLACK BELT!”

She stands up and points a finger in my face. It’s so sudden that I reflexively take a step back.

Some of the other parents chime in.

Other Parents: “Hey, chill out, lady!”

Before I can reply to [Mother], I hear a loud commotion behind me, and I hear more parents and students shouting. I turn and see [New Boy] smacking and hitting a girl in the class. [Assistant] is shouting, “Hey, stop!” However, the girl who [New Boy] is hitting is a purple belt and a little bada** of her own. She loads a front kick and hits the brat center mass, right in his stomach. He shouts and doubles over, crying tears of pain.

I am so freaking proud of her!

Mother: “HEY! THAT LITTLE B**** HURT MY SON!”

[Mother] runs past me onto the mat and gets in the face of the FOURTEEN-YEAR-OLD GIRL her son just attacked. This girl is already scared and starts to cry, but [Mother] ups the ante and shoves this girl in the chest with her hand. [Assistant] gets between them, red-faced and enraged. I immediately rush over and try to defuse the situation, but neither of them is having it. Parents stand up and start shouting.

The girl’s father, who was with the other parents, yells at [Mother]:

Girl’s Father: “KEEP YOUR HANDS OFF MY DAUGHTER!”

He starts approaching aggressively but backs off when he realizes [Assistant] and I, both black belts, are by her.

Now, you should know something about [Assistant]. She’s under five feet tall and less than 110 pounds soaking wet, but she can still kick my a** up and down the mat on any given day. She’s fast, accurate, and insanely flexible. She can control her body and perform techniques that I simply can’t.

[Assistant] and [Mother] get into a shouting match with each other. I address [Mother], raising my voice as I am genuinely pissed off.

Me: “Leave with your kid and don’t come back. Don’t you ever lay a hand on any of my students! Do you understand?!”

Mother: “F*** you! My son needs a black belt, and you won’t give him one!”

Assistant: “Your son is crazy! He attacked our students!”

This sets [Mother] off, as she reaches and tries to b****-slap [Assistant] in the face. Big mistake.

Having had enough, [Assistant] parries the smack and fires an absolutely vicious leg kick right into the meat of [Mother]’s inner thigh with nothing held back. The slap sound of [Assistant]’s shin bone decimating [Mother]’s thigh echoes off the ceiling like a slab of meat getting thrown on the floor.

It is glorious.

[Mother] gasps as she falls onto the mat in a heap.

Mother: “Oh… Oh, my God!”

She held her leg as [New Boy] got up and rushed at [Assistant]. I got in front of her and grabbed the boy’s wildly swinging arms. He hit me a few times, but I refuse to hit children whatsoever. I let him tire himself out.

One of the other parents called the police. After interviewing everyone involved, they determined that [Assistant] and I acted in self-defense. Neither of us wanted to pursue assault charges against [Mother], but the parents of the girl who [Mother] shoved rightly felt differently about it, so [Mother] was hauled away in handcuffs.

[Mother] said she’d sue [Assistant] and me in civil court, but since we have legal waivers, here’s hoping nothing comes of that.

As for the boy, I honestly feel bad. His childhood has been robbed by piss-poor parenting, and I wish we could’ve had more time to straighten him out. I have a particular dislike for his views of women, and I feel like I really could’ve helped turn him around. Maybe, maybe not.

It’s the first day of high school in 1989. Our English teacher is introducing herself to us.

Teacher: “I do things differently in this classroom. I like to shake things up and have some fun. Don’t be surprised if you come in here one day and I’m playing a song by The New Boys On The Street.”

Blank stares.

Student: “Who?”

Teacher: “The New Boys On The Street.”

Student: “Do you mean The New Kids On The Block?”

Teacher: “Um, yeah. Those guys.”

In an attempt to look cool, she managed to look uncool on two different levels.

My mom didn’t believe I was sick when I was in the sixth grade. She said I was faking, made me go to school, and told me not to try to call her at work to come and pick me up. All day long, my teachers would take one look at my face, know that I was sick, and ask if I wanted to go home. I told them what my mom said: “I’m faking, so don’t even try to call her.”

I made it to my sixth period out of eight before my fever spiked, and I basically passed out. My teacher escorted me to the office, where the office staff tried to call my mom at work — she didn’t answer — and then let me sleep for the remaining two hours before school was out. The secretary escorted me to my locker to get my stuff, got me on the bus, and asked one of my classmates who rode the same bus to make sure I got home.

My mom came home, saw that I was practically unconscious again since my fever was at 103, and… got mad at the school for not calling her to let her know I was sick.

Every time she recounts that story, she always leaves out the part where she called me a faker and told me to go to school anyway. On the bright side, she never questioned me again when I said I was sick. Humiliation in knowing she sent her very sick child to school and refused to answer the phone was enough to humble her.

I didn’t want to take an advanced language arts class for my senior year of high school, so I signed up for the standard English 12. I immediately knew I wouldn’t like the class as, in the first week, the teacher started a unit on basic spelling rules.

My classmates and I all knew each other reasonably well, even if we weren’t all friends. One classmate had a slightly unusual name. For this story, I’ll call her Stella, and I’ll call the teacher Mrs. Hale (rhymes with “rail”).

On the first day, Mrs. Hale called the roll.

Mrs. Hale: “Estelle?” (Pronounced “eh-STELL”)

Stella: “Here, but my name is Stella.” (Pronounced “STEL-uh”)

Mrs. Hale: “Oh, all right. I’ll make a note.”

On the second day, Mrs. Hale called the roll.

Mrs. Hale: “Estelle?”

Stella: “It’s Stella.”

On the third day…

Mrs. Hale: “Estelle?”

Stella & Her Friends: “It’s Stella!”

On the fourth day…

Mrs. Hale: “Estelle?”

Most Of The Class: “It’s STELLA!”

This went on through the whole second week until we all kind of gave up, figuring Mrs. Hale would keep mispronouncing Stella’s name no matter what we did. All except me, that is.

At the beginning of the third week, Mrs. Hale explained something to us and wrote examples on the dry-erase board. I raised my hand to point out a minor mistake she had made. She looked at it and insisted she was correct. I showed her information in the textbook to prove otherwise. She just glared at me in an “Are you finished yet?” kind of way. Clearly, I wasn’t going to win that battle, and as a student against a teacher, I was essentially powerless, but I wanted revenge anyway.

Me: “Never mind, Mrs. Hally.” (Rhymes with “rally”)

Mrs. Hale: “My name is Mrs. Hale.”

Me: “I know that, Mrs. Hally.”

Mrs. Hale: “Why are you saying my name like that?”

Me: “Because you refuse to pronounce Stella’s name correctly, even though we have all corrected you several times. So, until you can get my friend’s name right, I will intentionally say your name wrong.”

She glared at me for about a minute and then went on with her lesson (mistakes and all) as if my interruption had never happened.

I called her Mrs. Hally the entire semester. She never got my friend’s name right.

I’m driving a school bus full of high school students, covering for a coworker who’s out sick. As I glance in the student mirror, I see two students throwing something. (Spoiler, for those concerned: it ends up NOT being any sort of bodily fluid or other human excreta.)

I pull the bus over to the shoulder of the road, turn off the engine, and take the keys out of the ignition so I can walk back to where they’re sitting to investigate. As I’m doing this, I see another student touch her hair and remark in a disgusted tone that this has happened “again”. 

I can now see that she’s using her hands to wipe MAYONNAISE out of her hair. I grab a roll of shop towels (essentially very thick paper towels — all our buses have some on board) and give her a few as I walk to the students who threw it. I hand the roll to them.

Me: “I am not moving this bus until you clean up the mayonnaise from the seats and floor.”

One student sighs and reaches for the towels, but the other scoffs at me.

Student #2: “Really? You’re serious?”

Me: *Still holding out the towels* “Yes. I didn’t think I’d have to tell high schoolers not to throw condiments on the school bus, but here we are. You need to clean up your mess, and I’m not moving the bus until you do. I’m paid by the hour; take your time.”

The other student looks like he is about to argue further, but the rest of the school bus quickly shuts him down with calls of, “Come on, I want to get home!” and, “You shouldn’t have done that anyway!” and so on.

Both boys get the mess cleaned up in a couple of minutes — using all the towels in the process — and put the dirty towels in the bus trash can. When they’re back in their seats, I start the bus and get everyone home. I hear a few students commenting that they’re surprised I was actually watching their behavior, and they are relieved that I’m not putting up with nonsense.

I also drive that same route the following morning. When the two students who threw the mayonnaise get on, I greet them with a smile.

Me: “Good morning! Is all food securely stored in your backpack?”

Students: *Resigned* “Yes.”

Me: “Fantastic. Thank you. I brought two new rolls of shop towels. I assume I won’t have to give you any, though.”

They behaved for me. I hope they continued to when their regular driver returned!

Related:
A Big Mayo No No, Part 9
A Big Mayo No No, Part 8
A Big Mayo No No, Part 7
A Big Mayo No No, Part 6
A Big Mayo No No, Part 5