SLINGING MUD

When a Detroit Public School’s special education teacher rejects an offer made by my employer I’m left with what the old-timers call choice cuts. I’m also left with the following suggestion from my boss: Why don’t you go back to school and get certified in Special Education? It pays more.

… As if that will entice me.

Heck, I’m trying to get rid of the young thugs. I’m tired of being Mommy and Daddy to them. I’m tired of advising them on how to do their time. I’d rather thin the herd. Give me the seasoned meat instead.

One youngster tells me, “Only white people get lice.”

His peers laugh—their way of showing approval.

I inform him that lice like clean heads, not dirty heads.

He puffs out his chest because in his world might-makes-right. “What’re you trying to say?” he asks.

I tell him that he lacks common sense and that he’d be better off keeping his pie-hole shut.

“You’re not gonna talk to me just any old way,” he warns.

I try to redirect. “Why would you think only white people get lice?”

“Because,” he answers, “they have hair like a dog’s.”

His peers laugh some more.

The problem with handling choice cuts is that they spoil more often than not and they stink up the place.  “They,” the old-timers say, “can’t even hold their mud.”  I couldn't agree more.

*More mudslinging this weekend (literally & metaphorically).