Sometimes You're the Joker and Sometimes the Joke's on You...

I was a practical joker in high school, so when I became a plumbing instructor, I was a lot more tolerant than most. Certain things I couldn't let slide, though, because then it could be my job on the line...

Usually, if nobody got hurt and I could handle the discipline in-shop, I'd take care of it myself and keep the administrators out of it. Once they got involved, they had a habit of blowing things up and placing blame on the teacher. They loved suspending teachers without pay and putting permanent notes in their files. It's how they controlled the teacher population. Hang a few rats for everyone to see and everyone else stays in line...

My junior class was huge. It started with 21 students, then with discipline and academic issues, it got whittled down to 17, which is still a lot of kids for one set of eyes. The state recommended a max of 12-14 students for one vocational instructor, but according to my bosses, that was "Just a recommendation..."

I built a 2" x 4" training station for teaching my juniors how to install tub and shower valves. Symmons Industries was headquartered in Braintree, Massachusetts, where legend has it that the original anti-scald prototype was whittled out of wood by the company's founder, Paul Symmons, in 1938. They donated twenty of their S96-2 tub/shower valves to the plumbing shop so the kids could learn how to install and repair them.

Before turning them loose in the shop, I dedicated several 55-minute lessons in the classroom, explaining the history of pressure-balanced tub/shower valves and the function of a limit stop. I reviewed the parts of the valve and the specific sequence they'd need to follow to install theirs.

The station was 4' wide x 8' long x 7' high, and there were sixteen 2" x 4" stud pockets for 16 valves, two on either end and six on each side. One 4' x 8' sheet of plywood covered the 2" x 6" base without being cut.

Here it is after one of my junior classes finished the project. Great looking job!

After I built it, I roughed in a valve so the kids would have a model to look at if they needed help, and I was unavailable.

I  had just received a shipment of new valves, and I handed them out to each kid and told them to write their name and the date on the top of the box. That way, if anything were missing, I'd know who was responsible. We reused them every year until we couldn't, at which point we'd get new ones.

The kids always got excited to do this project. Previous juniors told me it was their favorite project of the year.

We just left the classroom, and every kid had his own valve. A few kids worked in teams, which was fine with me as long as they split the work evenly and worked as a team.

After securing their stud pocket, they started the install. I was helping one of my weaker students one-on-one while other kids were getting tools out of the tool crib at the front of the shop and preparing to start their valves.

One of the kids set up a practical joke on the best student in the class. He did it by the tool crib while I worked one-on-one with another student 30 feet away.

I was told about it after it happened.

Apparently, he removed the valve and all the parts from the box and cut a hole on one side.  He pulled the box close to his groin and inserted himself. He approached the other kid and asked, "What's in the box?" 

The kid responded, "It's your tub/shower valve and all the trim."

"What do you mean trim?" the prankster asked.

"The handle, tub spout, shower head, shower arm, and face plate. All the trim you're gonna need to complete the valve."

The prankster put on a confused face and said, "Can you show me the stuff and explain it? I'm confused."

"Sure," the kid said. And then he opened the top of the box, and there it was, the prankster's manhood flopping around inside the box, looking for another way out. 

Just like the SNL skit from years ago (2006), "Dick in a Box"

When the kid came to me later and told me what the prankster had done, being the adult in the room and the instructor, I told the prankster to come with me...

I took him to a remote spot in the shop, where I could still see the workstation. I told him that if I had seen him do what I was told he had done, I'd be considered a mandatory reporter and have to report him to the Dean. And then it would end up in the Principal's hands, where he'd have no choice but to call local police.

I said, "The police would write it up, and you'd get a court date where a judge would most likely convict you, and you'd become a registered sex offender. You'd be required to go to classes for sex offenders, and your name would appear on a list of sex offenders... for the rest of your life."

By then, the prankster's fair-skinned face was beet red, and he was starting to shake. His prank was not so funny after all. The reality was he exposed himself to another student inside a public school...

Crazy shit happened in the locker room when I played football back in the early '70s, but this was 2018, in a vocational area in a comprehensive high school, and not the place for it.

I told him if he went before a judge and was found guilty, there would be no more football or lacrosse, two sports he played, and probably no college in his future either. "The worst part," I said, "nobody would care if you told them it was just a practical joke, a schoolboy prank you did in high school. All they'd hear is "sex offender," and they wouldn't give you a second chance, and they'd keep you away from their young children."

Then I looked him in the eyes and asked, "Do you understand what you did and how much trouble you could be in if I saw you do it and became a mandatory reporter?"

By that time, he looked like he was gonna cry. He said he was sorry and that he'd never do it again. I believed him. 

I said, "Okay. I hope you've learned an important lesson here. Now, go back to work..."

I thought it was over, but it wasn't. I was about to get more involved than I ever expected...

To be continued…

*All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental…