I Pledge Allegiance To Tea And Scones

High School, Jerk, New York, Students, Teachers, USA | Learning | April 29, 2021

I was a teenage boy attending high school in the USA. Every morning, the whole class would stand up and, with varying degrees of enthusiasm, recite the pledge of allegiance. I did not join in.

As time went by, the homeroom teacher noticed my lack of standing and pledging, and she got angrier and angrier, until one day, she flipped out.

She grabbed me by my shirt and dragged me through the halls of the school, red-faced and screaming almost incoherently about the pledge, the flag, patriotism, and so on and so forth. She dragged me through the office, past a surprised-looking receptionist, and thrust me through a closed door and almost onto my bum in front of the principal, still screeching away at the top of her lungs.

When he could finally get a word in edgeways, the principal said;

Principal: “Why do you refuse to recite the pledge, young man?”

Me: “Well, I’m English. Why would I?”

I thought the teacher was going to burst a blood vessel in her brain when he calmly accepted my explanation. I ended up changing homerooms the next week. Can’t imagine why.

This story is part of our Best Of April 2021 roundup!