No Movie Magic To Rescue You Here

I am in sixth grade when this happens and we are doing end-of-year testing in our first-period classes. I am very happy with this because my first-period class is Intro to Spanish, which is taught by a very nice teacher. The first day of testing goes by without any problems, but when I get to class the second day, I find out that my Spanish teacher is gone and my math teacher will be supervising us in her place.

My math teacher that year is not overly sadistic, but he acts like he knows everything and that the people who taught us math in elementary school are idiots. He is also the type who picks favorites, gives us only three bathroom passes per trimester — using any more gets you a lunch detention — forbids any socializing at all during regular class time — for example, if you turn around in your chair you get lunch detention –and gives you lunch detention if you needlessly disrupt class more than three times a week. His classes can be fun sometimes, and he does teach useful stuff, which makes me feel kind of guilty for disliking him, but I just do not like him at all.

During the time period where everyone is working on the huge test we are fine, but when everyone is finished, he decides to turn on a movie. The movie that he chooses is one that I have recently seen and I am terrified of because a scene involves something I have a phobia of, so I go to ask him if we can change the movie because I’m scared of watching it. He refuses. I keep asking him, but he keeps refusing and turns on the movie. I get multiple questions about why the movie scares me on my way back to my seat and I simply answer by saying that there is a scene that really scares me. Fast forward a bit, and we’re almost at the part that terrifies me. Because it’s close to the end of class, I ask to use the bathroom and get permission to leave the classroom. I spend the rest of the class in the bathroom. Faith in humanity crushed.

The next day, my Spanish teacher is back and, since the class is done with the test, she goes to turn on a movie. I ask her if we can switch to a different movie, and when she asks me why, I explain and some of my classmates explain how scared I looked while the movie was on and how I had to go to the bathroom to calm down. This catches me off guard because middle schoolers aren’t usually the kindest and because I’m probably the least popular person in the class. The teacher agrees to not watch the movie and chooses a different one, which I enjoy.

Then, when class is about to end, I am handed a small hall pass that is only issued for when students need to serve lunch detentions. I see that the room I’m supposed to go to for lunch detention is the one my math teacher’s class is in, so at lunch, I go in and ask my math teacher why I have lunch detention. He tells me that it’s because I used up my three bathroom passes for his class for the trimester and that I used a fourth the day before. He gave me a lunch detention because I used the bathroom in a class that wasn’t even his. Faith in humanity crushed again. I serve the lunch detention and go on my way, wondering how my math teacher could possibly think this was acceptable, but as I write this I wonder if he gave me lunch detention because I didn’t want to watch the movie.