My daughters’ middle school (grades six to nine, ages twelve to fourteen) got a new principal. He’s stricter than the previous one. For example, he instituted a no cell phone policy and a no backpack policy (both would be left in lockers or a staff-attended storage room).

The former I thought made sense because my daughters had told me how distracted their classmates often are (and my daughters share a flip phone anyway; they do the same extracurriculars, and neither is old enough to drive), but the latter confused me, and I wasn’t sure it had been totally thought out. I asked the new principal about it at the school’s open house, shortly before the school year started.

Me: “Hi, welcome to the school! I like your no cell phone policy; it makes a lot of sense with the different research I’ve read, especially [particular book about teen mental health].”

Principal: “I read the same book, and that’s a huge part of why the rule is in place.”

Me: “I’m confused about the backpack policy, though. Can you explain that one?”

Principal: “That’s just a matter of logistics. There are so many students enrolled that it’s hard for them to fit through the hallways during passing periods if they have backpacks on.”

Me: “Ah, I see. But… what about students with medical devices, like inhalers? Or the approximately third of your students who menstruate and will need to change a pad or tampon during the school day?”

The principal’s eyes went wide for just a fraction of a second, just long enough for me to be pretty sure he hadn’t thought about that.

Principal: “Oh, medical needs. Yes, of course; students can have a small bag or purse for carrying things like that.”

And a few hours later, there was an email “clarifying” that students were allowed to carry small bags for things like pens and pencils, pads and tampons, and medical devices. I’m glad I asked!

This story starts when my daughter was in kindergarten. Her school allows all the kids to wear their Halloween costumes on the Friday before Halloween every year. When [Daughter] got back from her first school dress-up party, she was excited to tell me the tale of witnessing a knight in shining armor rescuing a damsel in distress.

It seems that the two teachers who handled kindergarten classes had dressed up as a knight and a dragon, respectively. During lunchtime, their principal had shown up dressed as a princess and was “captured” by the teacher dressed up as a dragon and then “rescued” by the one dressed as a knight. This show was apparently the highlight of my daughter’s day, and it made me smile a bit just hearing her excitement retelling the tale.

I should probably also mention that while her teachers were both female, her principal was male.

A year later, my daughter got to do her second school Halloween dress-up. That year, her principal was dressed up as a princess once again, and at one point, one of her peers, who was dressed as a dinosaur, was encouraged to capture the principal. To [Daughter]’s surprise, her teacher then came running up to her with a foam sword and told her that she could rescue her principal by “slaying” the dinosaur. [Daughter] was ecstatic as she told me how she got to rescue her principal that night.

At my next conference with [Daughter]’s teacher, I learned that [Teacher] had been assigned the duty of selecting the child who would be entrusted with a foam sword. Apparently, it was a special privilege that was only offered to a girl who did well in classwork and could be entrusted to be restrained and not go too wild, assaulting her peers with a sword. I was assured that it was a tremendous compliment that my daughter was the one selected.

I assume you all can guess what happened the next year. By fourth grade, all the kids knew that their principal would be dressed as a princess, and the moment he came out to the playground, all the boys rushed out to join in “capturing” him. Then, out came a teacher to “knight” a handful of girls — and it was always only girls who were knighted — who promptly slew their peers and rescued their principal. The kids all looked forward to this routine by then.

I finally got to talk to [Principal] about his damsel-in-distress act recently. Apparently, it started out as a joke. His kindergarten teachers had been jokingly arguing over what thematic costumes they should wear when [Principal] had offered to be the princess to complete their theme. His original capture — and rescue — had not been planned and was just the adults having a bit of impromptu fun, but the kids loved it so much that they decided to make it a routine.

Eventually, this branched out, and [Principal] is now committed to one capture and rescue for each grade in his school. [Principal] joked that he regrets starting the routine as it’s impossible to get any work done on dress-up day when he has to somehow fit in six captures along with his usual workload. But the kids love it so much that he doesn’t dare stop it now.

He also said that while it was not his intention originally, once he realized he had the opportunity to subvert standard gender roles, he figured he would lean into it. So now, once a year, the big, strong man who leads the school wears a dress and gets captured, and it’s up to the girls, and only the girls, to rescue him from his untimely demise.

By now, the whole school is getting into it. My daughter had a project not too long ago where she had to participate in a mock debate on whether the school should keep its actual mascot or replace it with a very masculine-looking princess. Another teacher apparently always does a test around Halloween on which the questions include multiple examples of their principal being dragged off by various threats while wearing increasingly ridiculous outfits, and the only way to rescue him is to correctly solve the appropriate math problems.

My son will start school in two years. My daughter and I have discussed it and decided not to tell [Son] what to expect during his first school dress-up party, as it will be more fun for him to be surprised. [Daughter] is adamant that she wants to try to convince [Son] to dress up as a princess that day in hopes that the teachers will decide to “capture” him along with his principal. I highly doubt she’s going to succeed at this plan, but it’s more amusing to me to sit back and watch than to try to talk her out of it. Whatever happens, I’m sure [Son] will enjoy the show as much as [Daughter] did.

My child’s school has my contact information listed as “Call for emergencies only, I work nights, please call father first.”

My phone rings in the middle of the day:

Me: *Groggy.* “Hello… what’s the emergency?”

Vice Principal: “Oh, it’s not an emergency.”

Me: “…Did you read the contact sheet?”

Vice Principal: *Pause.* “…I’m looking at it now.”

Me: “So you saw the part about calling me only for emergencies, and calling my child’s father first?”

Vice Principal: “…Yes, I see it now.”

Me: “You woke me up in the middle of my sleep cycle. I’d be happy to continue this conversation at 2 a.m. if you give me your personal home number.”

Vice Principal: “…Sorry.” *Click.*

CONTENT WARNING: Gross (Roaches)

When my brother was younger, he used to get strange rashes during the school year. My mom didn’t think anything of it at first, just getting salves and ointments at the drug store to treat the rashes. One day, when he was in second grade, my mom went to drop him off at his classroom only to see another little boy putting what looked like tiny brown things into a box. When the little boy went to scoot past my mom, she stopped him.

Mom: “What do you have there?”

Boy: “I’m taking out the bugs!”

Mom: “The bugs? Can I see them?”

The boy showed my mother the inside of the box, which turned out to be almost half-full of cockroaches.

Mom: “Can I have that, honey? I’ll take the bugs out for you.”

Boy: “Okay!”

The boy handed my mother the box of cockroaches, and she watched my brother add his jacket and lunch box to the growing pile caused by kids not putting their things in their cubby holes. She moved to the teacher’s desk and found that the class had a substitute she was on friendly terms with.

Mom: “I’m sorry, are these what I think they are?”

She showed the substitute, who looked into the box and nodded.

Substitute: “Yep, those are roaches. You want me to call the office right now?”

Mom: “No, I’ll show them myself.”

My mother then marched herself to the main office. The secretaries immediately asked her what was in the box only to be startled and jump away from her when she showed them the roaches. Unfortunately, the principal wasn’t in, and the vice principal was doing her rounds, but my mother said it was fine and patiently waited in a chair with a box of roaches on her lap.

The second the vice principal walked in, one of the secretaries literally jumped up to attention and announced that my mother was there to see her. The vice principal invited my mother into her office.

Vice Principal: “What did you want to speak with me about, Mrs. [Mom’s Last Name]?”

Mom set the box of cockroaches on the desk.

Mom: “Were you aware of the cockroach issues in the second-grade classrooms?

The vice principal looked into the box, and her face went pale.

Vice Principal: “Oh, my God!”

She immediately grabbed the phone and called the head custodian, who came to the office.

Vice Principal: “Were you aware we had a roach problem in the classrooms?”

Head Custodian: “Yes, ma’am, I was.”

Vice Principal: “And did you make a report of this? Is [Principal] aware of this?”

Head Custodian: “Yes, ma’am, he is.”

Vice Principal: “What’s being done about this?”

Head Custodian: *Shrugs*

The vice principal and my mother were both furious. While the vice principal tried to get a hold of exterminators, she also gave my mom the phone numbers for some people higher up in the school district so she could make more formal complaints about the school not handling the situation properly. They ended up having to fumigate the school during a school break due to the chemicals involved being harmful.

The rashes my brother was getting? Turns out he’s allergic to cockroaches.

I work in a school. Over the summer, I received an email from my boss, the principal. The note asked for my phone number in order for her to call me urgently. In that moment, as a newer teacher, I panicked and sent my phone number. All I could think was that I had done something wrong, or that there was a problem with one of my students.

A week later, I realized that the email with my phone number had gotten stuck in my outbox and never went through. This realization came as I was sitting on a plane waiting to go visit friends for the weekend. I sent a fresh email with an apology for the delay and waited for a response. I got a text soon after. My principal was telling me she was in a meeting and needed me to do something for her, urgently. I responded and said of course I would help, but I might not be super responsive since I was on a plane about to take off. She went on to ask me to purchase five $100 Apple store gift cards for participants in the meeting, telling me that I would be reimbursed later.

Now, dear readers, your alarm bells have probably been going off for some time. Mine hadn’t been, but now some red flags were finally peeking over the horizon. Still, I set about purchasing the cards since I trusted my boss and figured she had a good reason. Ordering the gift cards online required a recipient’s name, so I sent a text asking who they were for. The person on the other end told me to just put in my own name, and I would be paid back later.

Oh, h*** no. Red flags up, alarm bells ringing like a fire engine.

This was a scam.

Shaking my head at my own gullibility, I closed the Apple store window on my phone (I never purchased the cards, don’t worry) and looked back at the original email. My principal’s name had come up in the “Sender” line, but when I took a closer look, I saw that it was some random email address using the word “principal” and my boss’s name, not her official school email address. I found the correct email address and sent off a quick note to my boss, just to confirm that she didn’t really randomly need me to buy her a bunch of gift cards for a meeting.

Most people might have just stopped responding to this obvious scammer and moved on with their lives.

I’m not most people.

Messing with a scammer had been a dream of mine, so I jumped at the opportunity. (Maybe I’ve been reading too many satisfying scammer stories here on Not Always Right, but I had to give it a shot!) I wanted to see how long they would keep up the facade now that I was wise to their game. Plus, the plane was delayed on the tarmac, so I needed some entertainment. I wrote to the scammer:

Me: “Hey, how’s Jeremy doing?”

My principal has a son, but his name is not Jeremy.

The scammer’s messages are riddled with grammatical and spelling errors. That coming from an educator should have been my first clue.

“Boss”: “Fine. Please speed up with the purchase; I need them for presentation in a few minutes.”

Me: “Question: how do you and I know each other?”

“Boss”: “What’s all these supposed to mean, and how does it correlate with the task?”

Me: “I’m not sending you any information until you confirm for me who I am, how we know each other, and who Jeremy is.”

“Boss”: “Excuse me? What’s all this?”

Me: “I’m waiting. You want your money? Prove you’re [Principal].”

“Boss”: “You’re one of my staff. Of course, I’ll call you once I’m out of this meeting to prove to you. Just complete this urgent task for me real quick.”

Me: “What do I do on your staff?”

“Boss”: “Oh, my God, [My Name], please don’t give me unnecessary headache. Just complete this task for me, and I’ll be sure of your reimbursement with bonus once I’m out here. This is the last text you’re getting from me. I need to make a speech. I’ll be expecting the cards. Thanks.”

Me: “At least tell me what subject I teach.”

A few moments later…

Me: “Also, there’s no one in [Principal]’s life named Jeremy. If you’re going to pretend to be someone, at least know more about them.”

“Boss”: “I didn’t know any Jeremy, [My Name]. You asked me how Jeremy is. Should I just say I don’t know who’s he/she? You can see me reply is just ‘fine’. What exactly is going on with you, [My Name]? You’re playing with your job. Did you find another one yet? What I asked you to do is soooo simple. I’ll definitely reimburse you once am out. I don’t know why you find this difficult to do.”

At that point, I heard back from my boss, letting me know that no, she indeed was not requesting me or anyone else to buy any gift cards. I was laughing my butt off at this scammer’s audacity. Threatening my job to try and scare me?! Pathetic! I know I probably dragged it on too far, but this was too good.

The plane finally took off, so I put the phone on airplane mode and chuckled to myself about it as we flew.

But the story doesn’t end here, folks.

When I landed and turned my phone’s service back on, there were more messages from the scammer. Then, as I was waiting for my luggage at baggage claim, my phone rang. It was the scammer’s phone number!

Me: *Cheery, sing-song* “Hello!”

Male Voice: “Uh….” *Hangs up*

I then responded to the latest message from them. I finally got them to admit “what I do” on my boss’s staff. They said I teach a third-grade [Language I do not teach anymore] and [Religious Life] culture class.

I did teach that — three years previously and not for my current boss.

Me: “OMG, that’s how you found me! You found my outdated resume somewhere online and decided to try and take advantage of me. I bet your mom is so proud of you for trying to scam people for a living.”

“Boss”: “What’s all this?”

Me: “I just caught you in a lie, that’s what ‘this’ is. My actual boss [Principal] just wrote to me confirming that this is not her. And the voice on the phone who just tried to call me was male. [Principal] is female. Have fun getting blocked. I will be referring this number to the police.”

And thus, the saga ended. I reported the phone number and phony email address to a government scam-stoppers website and regaled my friends with the story all weekend.

When school resumed in the fall, the principal mentioned in her “Welcome Back” address at the faculty meeting that many people had written to her asking if she was really requesting that she send them hundreds of dollars in gift cards, and she assured us that this was not really her. She had been hacked and impersonated, and it seemed like I was not the only victim.

Was baiting this scammer my smartest move? Probably not.

Was it worth it? Absolutely.

And people say there’s no such thing as free entertainment!