The Permanent Record

On Friday this girl came into the gym during school hours when she was clearly about 15 years old.  One of the sales guys tried to sell her a membership but failed because usually she is in school and busy.  I was nosy and chimed into the conversation, wondering why she was playing hooky, when her Mom quickly informed me that she had O.S.S.


Out of school suspension, folks.  Something I am not familiar with because I failed to ever even get a tardy when I was in school.  In fact, the only time I got in trouble was when I was wearing an American Eagle skirt that was clearly too short, and was told by the principal to go see my administrator.  It was about the 2nd time I had ever worn a skirt to school, and the only time I had ever been in trouble.  I was two weeks away from graduating.  I asked him how I could find out who my administrator was and he scoffed at me.  My mom had to bring me a fresh pair of jeans, and she brought the smallest pair I had.


I digress, obviously. The girl who was working out got out of school suspension for a ridiculous reason.  Another girl at school was talking about her behind her back, and spreading all sorts of rumors.  So at lunch, she went up to the girl who was starting stuff, and told her to quit spreading rumors or she'd kick the girl's ass up and down the school hall. To me, this is pretty damn funny.  The reason they gave her suspension was because of the "threat" and the "bullying."  I can't believe how sensitive children are.  I'm 100% sure that the kid that sat in front of me in AP US History reached back and punched me straight in the face one day.  It hurt, and I put my head down until the pain went away.  No one knew about it, I didn't get him expelled for battery, I sucked it up and dealt with it. Kids need to learn how to fight battles and call each others names and get called names and stop being sissies.  People still call me Mandrea, and if people hadn't called me Mandrea so much in middle school, I would probably be offended when they say it now.  Wait...no I wouldn't.


The fact that this girl got OSS sent shivers straight down my spine.  Why you ask? Well my first thought was that now it is going to be on that girl's permanent record.  Then I realized that your permanent record doesn't exist.  Then I realized that I have been beaten by The Man.  I am still under the impression that somewhere in a file cabinet ruled by an all superior being (Jesus?...a golden filing cabinet....?)  I have a manilla folder with my name on it that has everything bad that I have ever done written in it.  Not just written by a spiffy mechanical pencil that can easily be erased, but by a permanent marker of the sharpie brand.  That's what makes the permanent record permanent, after all.  I wonder what is on my permanent record.  


Damn it, there I go again.  There is no such thing as a permanent record, especially in high school.  Maybe if I had realized that I would have been tardy, or gotten in a fight or thrown chalk at my teacher or something.  Wait a second, I did throw chalk at my teacher, and guess what, it never made it to my permanent record.