Knife point??

So between Leila's gun point story and Brenda's story about ISS, I had to share this little gem from my past.

I once brought a knife to school.

::letting that sink in::

Okay you can slowly let go of the pearls and unclench. ;) Yes, I went to public school; No, no one got hurt, and here's the story:

I was a senior in high school, and my sister was a sophomore, and one night the wire on her braces slipped off the brackets, and it was cutting into her gums. We finally were able to fix it by taking a small paring knife and popping the wire back up into place. The following morning on our way out the door for school, the wire slipped out of place again, and I quickly stuffed the knife in my purse so that I could fix the wire in the car.

We were running late, so we parked the car and ran into the building so that we could make a quick locker stop before we met up again for first period orchestra. (Have I mentioned that I played the cello in high school?) My sister played the violin so we were in the same class. The director had been our teacher for two years and knew us both very well so I showed him that I had the knife in my purse and that I needed it to fix my sister's braces. He sent us off to the bathroom, and I popped it back into place, put the knife back in my purse since it was small and dull with a rounded blunt tip, and it fit snugly in the inside pocket of my purse.

I completely forgot about it.

Fast forward two weeks: I was eating lunch with my friends, and when the bell rang, I completely forgot my purse on the back of my chair. So as I sat in class, I got a note from the bookstore telling me that they had my purse. Extremely relieved, I excused myself from class to go retrieve it, but when I got there, the ladies at the book store told me that it was in the dean's office.

Puzzled, I innocently skipped off to the next location. When I arrived in the dean's office, I was ushered into a dimly lit office with our extremely large and intimidating dean looming behind his desk. I saw my purse on the table and said, "Oh! Thank goodness, there it is!" Then I heard the dean say, "Is that your purse?" A little taken aback by his accusing tone, I said, "Um, yes."

At that point, I saw what he had on his desk in front of him, and my heart dropped like a stone and collided with my stomach as it jumped up into my throat. THE KNIFE.

He told me to take a seat, and then he stood up and loomed over me as he proceeded to lecture me in his booming voice all about how I had put the students of the school at risk, and how if it had fallen out of my purse and someone found it and used it as a weapon, I would have been responsible, and I just started crying. He didn't care at all why I had it, and it didn't matter to him that I had no intention of using it for anything remotely violent. After he finished his lecture, all I could squeak out was, "Will this affect my grades?" Truly this was the thought of a hardened criminal...

Finally, one of the softer hearted assistant deans, brought me into his office, and he could tell that I was badly shaken by all of this, and he tried to lighten the mood. He called my mom who thankfully did remember that I had been using the knife to fix orthodontia and was not planning to hold anyone hostage at knife point. She actually found it funny and this helped to ease my mind a bit. Then, I sat awaiting my fate.

The dean decided that he could not let me off without some type of action since what I had done was so serious in nature, and he elected to give me 3 days in ISS (in school suspension). Thankful that I wasn't going to be expelled for possessing a weapon in school, I set off back to class with a hall pass with instructions to report to ISS the following morning. At this point, I was horrified when I realized that my teachers would each receive a list with my name on it notifying them that I was in ISS. So I made the rounds to each of my teachers, and they all took pity on me and thanked me for at least explaining the situation. They also agreed to let me make up any tests and work I would be missing due to the nature of the offense.

So Miss Goody Two Shoes sat in ISS for three days with the pot heads and slackers, and I learned things like the fact that the joint pictured in the anti marijuana poster was rolled very poorly. I laughed at the irony that apparently to deter kids from smoking pot, the joint in the anti drug poster must be properly and tightly rolled...

It was the most boring 3 days of my life except for the time when one of my teachers brought me a little goody bag with candy. :)

It turned out that while I was bored out of my mind, the rumor mill was in full swing and the story was going around that I was in ISS because I brought a butter knife to school. Forget the fact that I played varsity volleyball or played in the orchestra, this moment in my high school life became my stamp on my graduating class.

I actually was mentioned in the valedictorian's speech!