My first year as principal, I decided that if the kids sold enough chocolate I would shave my beard. Boy was that great. They beat the goal easily and the nurse shaved me in front of the whole school. This idiot brings her Lady Schick from home, cut the holy beejeezus out of my face. The last thing I remembered before passing out was telling the kids not to be alarmed and the nurse whispering in my ear that the razor is the one she used to shave her private zone.
Every year you have to top it, though. So the next year, I said I would paint my car pink. Those little sneaks, they beat me again. I came through on my promise. It was kind of funny for a while. Then I was brutally beaten when some really tough guys mistook me for a lost float from some kind of parade.
The next year, I said that I would let someone burn my arm with cigarettes. This is about when I started realizing that the kids weren’t selling because they thought that it would be fun for everyone. They wanted to see me suffer terribly.
After a few more years, after I signed divorce papers in the gym in front of everyone, after I let a one-eyed Asian man cut off three of my fingers, and after I dug up my childhood dog’s corpse and put it in a lucite case as our new mascot, I decided that maybe being principal wasn’t for me.
I learned a lot by being principal. I assume. I forgot almost everything when they had me parachute ecstasy in front of the whole school and then tied me up. I bit through my tongue and lost enough blood that my brain never quite recovered. But hey, it’s not just a job. It’s a lifestyle.