I’m in high school in the early 2000s. There has been an announcement that we will all stay in our current class — in my case, Spanish — until further notice due to a lockdown. We have had lockdown drills before, so that’s what we think it is. The classroom is off the central courtyard where we eat lunch, and there’s a giant window.

Teacher: “That’s odd. Normally, they tell teachers if there’s a drill.”

She locks the door to the classroom, shoves a couple of chairs in front of the door, and motions to a classmate to turn off the lights. About forty-five minutes later…

Classmate #1: “This is a long drill. I’m hungry.”

Classmate #2: “Did we miss the all-clear?”

Classmate #3: “I hear voices outside. I bet we missed it.”

Teacher: “I’ll call the office.”

She picks up the phone. I see movement out the window in the courtyard out of the corner of my eye. I turn my head to see what it is.

Me: “Um…Señora [Teacher], there are cops in the courtyard.”

Teacher: “What?!”

Everyone turned toward the window. Not only were there cops, but there was also a SWAT team with guns drawn heading toward our side of the building. My teacher dropped the phone, let out an exclamation in Spanish, and ordered us all to get down. We dropped to the floor. We stayed like that for another thirty minutes until an all-clear is finally given. We found out later that a kid had brought a BB gun to school and told his friends that it was a real gun. Hence, the lockdown.

We were in health class at school while they were explaining how you need so many cups of water every day.

Teacher: “Soda doesn’t count, though. It’s a diuretic, which means it makes you urinate more often. That means a can of soda will remove more water than it adds.

Friend: “Oh, no. I think I may be in the negatives!”

Thankfully for my soda-loving friend, while soda is a diuretic, it still tends to add more liquid than it removes. It’s not a good source of hydration, but it is better than nothing.

Friend: “Did you go to the high school reunion?”

Me: “Yeah.”

Friend: “Who was there?”

I list some classmates.

Friend: “[Classmate]? Wasn’t he the guy who wound up at [Ivy League College] and did all that work in string theory?”

Me: “I don’t think so.”

Friend: “Then who was [Classmate]?”

Me: “The guy who used so much hairspray that he once bumped into his locker and broke his hair.”

Friend: “Yeah, not the guy I was thinking of.”

During our Easter break in my sixth-grade year, my grandmother finds an orphaned squirrel kit and watches it for a couple of days before she can find a place that can properly care for it.

Upon going back to school, I tell a girl that I am semi-friends with about it. I don’t recall how or why this happens, but I decide to mess with her and manage to convince her that squirrels lay eggs. Looking back, I realize this was kind of mean, but I was eleven and figured she was most likely pretending to believe me or that she’d bring it up to someone like her parents who would set her straight in the off chance she wasn’t. I promptly forget about our conversation within a few days since she doesn’t bring it up again.

Fast forward about a month, we’re learning about the major animal classifications and we’re on the section about mammals. 

Teacher: “With the exceptions of the platypus and echidna, mammals do not lay eggs, but instead give birth to live young… Yes, [Girl]?”

Girl: “What about squirrels?”

At this point, I kind of freeze in horror as I realize what’s happening.

Teacher: “Squirrels?”

Girl: “Yeah, [My Name] told me they lay eggs, too!”

Of course, now the room’s attention shifts from her to me, and I’m barely able to squeak out a response.

Me: “I didn’t think you actually believed me!”

Poor [Girl] looked utterly mortified, and our teacher looked like she wanted to retire right then and there. [Girl] didn’t talk to me for the rest of the time we attended school together. I can’t say that I blame her.

This isn’t my story, but rather one my high school economics teacher told me.

When my teacher was in college, he didn’t have a lot of money to his name. He had to work part-time just to cover his tuition and the bare essentials. However, there was one luxury he afforded himself: shampoo. When possible, he’d buy himself a bottle of super-fancy salon-grade shampoo.

Unfortunately, as anyone who’s ever lived in a dorm will tell you, when you live with a bunch of college dudes, people will invariably manhandle your stuff. When my teacher was going to take his regular showers, he’d pick up his fancy shampoo bottle and notice it was distinctly lighter than the last time he held it. Obviously, he was rationing it out for himself, which meant someone else was using it.

He went to his dormmates in the common room to make a case.

Teacher: “Hey, guys, has anyone been using my shampoo?”

Guy #1: “Nope.”

Guy #2: “Not me.”

Guy #3: “No.”

Teacher: “Okay, well, I think someone might have been using it, so if you are, please stop.”

Days went by, and the shampoo bottle continued to drain away. He asked his dormmates several more times, reminding them that that shampoo was literally the one nice thing he can afford, but none of them admitted it. 

Finally, my teacher decided to take the kid gloves off; if they wouldn’t tell him, he had another way of sussing out the thief. There was still a bit of shampoo left in the bottle, so he popped the top and poured in a teensy bit of laundry bleach. He left the bottle in its usual spot and went to hang out in the common room.

Later in the day, he was doing nothing in particular with two of his dormmates when a scream sounded from the bathroom, followed by loud, angry footsteps down the stairs. It was [Guy #3], and he had a gigantic blonde streak in his hair.

Guy #3: “I’M GONNA KICK YOUR A**, [TEACHER]!”

And then my teacher, with a mask of absolute calm, turned to [Guy #3] and asked:

Teacher: “Why are you blaming me for that?”

[Guy #3] opens his mouth to speak and then stuttered. It is at this moment that he realized my teacher had checkmated him; if he said he’d gotten the bleach streak from the shampoo, he’d out himself as a thief in front of the whole dorm. After a bit of angry stuttering and posturing, [Guy #3] stomped off wordlessly.

Nobody ever touched my teacher’s shampoo again after that.