Today, I found out that the prettiest girl in class isn’t just out of my league in looks. 

The teacher, an older guy with no recognizable sense of humor outside of the occasional dad joke, was working with her on a physics problem. He asked her a question about the problem, and she said, “I think not.” 

He responded, “Poof. You don’t exist.”

It turns out she reads philosophy, including Kant and Descartes. She also got the physics problem first.

I am sitting in the hallway during lunch hour, reading a book. A person I know comes up to me and starts chatting.

Girl: “Oh, you’re reading [Book]?”

Me: “Yeah, I love [Author]!”

Girl: “Isn’t it sad how [Character] dies?“

I stare at her in shock.

Girl: “Oh, you haven’t gotten to that part yet?”

Me: “…no.”

Girl: “Oh. Sorry!” *Flounces off*

I put down that book and didn’t pick it up again for the next twenty years.

For the record, that character dies during the climax at the very end of the book. I was very clearly only a couple of chapters in. She knew what she was doing.

When I was a kid in elementary school (like first or second grade), I had one of the sweetest teachers ever. She was an older woman who liked to reward students and had a fun way to reward everyone — but there was one kid who screwed around and found out.

We had a board of gold star stickers, and you got a gold star for doing exceptionally well in class — not just answering questions and whatnot but helping to clean up, helping your classmates, and so on. On Friday, [Teacher] would bring in a bag of mini candy bars, little packs of hard candy, and things like that. Every Friday, each student got to pick a piece of candy, but if you got three gold stars, you got another piece. Not only was it a good incentive for us, but it was also a fun math lesson because every three gold stars was another piece of candy. Got six stars? You get two extra pieces.

There was one boy in my class who was the stereotype of a class clown. He was a brat. He never did his work, he never helped out, and he acted like he’d never been told “no” in his life. We never saw a single gold star beside his name on the board. He always threw a big fit when Friday came around and he only got his single piece of candy.

One week, we got a new girl in the class, and [Teacher] brought in a big bag of Almond Joys. (For those who don’t know, they’re bars of sweet coconut with an almond on top, covered in milk chocolate. They’re so good.) Unfortunately, the new girl was allergic to almonds, so she wasn’t able to eat the candy. [Teacher] was really nice about it, though; she still had some candy from the previous week (a bag of Smarties, I think?), so she gave her those instead, and since she’d inconvenienced her, she gave her an extra one to apologize.

Well… the class brat caught on.

The next week, [Teacher] surprised us with brownies — the ones in the plastic wrapper that had the fudge icing and walnuts on top. Immediately, [Brat] declared that he was allergic to walnuts and couldn’t eat them, and the teacher gave him two Almond Joys instead.

The following Monday at lunch, when [Teacher] brought us to the cafeteria for lunch, she hung back for a few minutes to chat with another teacher — just in time to see [Brat] open his lunch bag and pull out…

A brownie covered in walnuts.

I didn’t know the word “cathartic” at the time, but it certainly applies. [Teacher] came over to the desk to take the brownie, reminding him of his allergies and asking if he would like her to call the school nurse. [Brat] wailed and whined that his mother had bought him a whole box, claimed that he wasn’t that allergic, and told her to give it back.

When we got back to the classroom, [Teacher] gave us a quick lesson on the importance of not lying to others with the story, The Boy Who Cried Wolf. [Brat] looked like he had sucked on a lemon.

The next day, [Brat] came in a bit later than usual — with his mother, who looked furious. [Brat] looked smug. It was pretty clear that he had lied to his mother about the brownie, because she started screeching (in front of a class of five- and six-year-olds) about how [Teacher] had taken [Brat]’s entire lunch.

Unfortunately, she probably didn’t count on two things: one, [Teacher] was perfectly pleasant and explained that she was only looking out for [Brat]’s allergies, and two, a class of five- and six-year-olds can be almost too honest. We all vouched for her; she only took the brownie because [Brat] had said he was allergic to walnuts.

[Brat]’s mom clammed up quickly, and [Brat]’s face went pale as a sheet. Mom apologized to our teacher, thanked her for looking out for her son, and glared at him until he shrunk into his chair.

I don’t know what kind of punishment he faced after class, but he never caused trouble again.

I had a way better time in high school than any other school, but everyone in my graduating class knew each other a little better than they knew me since they’d all been a class together since first grade.

I joined poetry club my senior year and I loved it. The club met every morning prior to regular classes. I sat with a few other girls I didn’t know, and we all hit it off. My other classmates were also cool, but this one guy was always staring at me. I learned from my other classmates that he had a minor learning disability, but he was harmless. I was told not to worry by many people who’d known him for years.

Over the course of several weeks, [Guy] started walking next to me between my classes and trying to strike up conversations about my personal life, asking me if I was single, and complimenting my appearance a lot. I thanked him awkwardly and tried to meet up with friends as much as possible to limit these ambushes. I wasn’t interested in dating anyone at that time, but I was also a very shy teenager who didn’t want to hurt his feelings since he was “harmless”, so I just smiled and tried to avoid him.

[Guy] friended me on Facebook and demanded I go out with him. I politely declined and said I wasn’t interested, but he just… kept asking. He kept saying he knew so much about me and I just had to give him a chance. I said no probably a dozen times before I just stopped replying to him.

The next day, he started constantly asking me out.

Guy: “Let’s go to the park after school or something. Just to hang out!”

Me: “No, thanks. I have to study.”

Guy: “Oh, c’mon, give me a chance! You’re so pretty… and I’m a great guy. We’d be perfect together!”

Me: “No, thank you. I— I don’t really date people.”

Guy: “Well, you should try! Just go out with me. It’ll be awesome; I’ll be the best boyfriend ever!”

This happened for almost a week. I told the teacher who ran the club, hoping she’d tell [Guy] to back off, but she patted me on the back and told me, “Boys will be boys; he probably just likes you!” My classmates also told me he’d eventually give up, I’d just have to ignore him since being annoying wasn’t a crime, and his disability meant he’d need time to understand.

I decided I had to speak up for myself. Regardless of this guy’s condition, he was harassing me, and nobody around me seemed to care despite my obvious discomfort and attempts to turn him down. The next time I saw him, I calmly told him that I would not go out with him and that I didn’t like him that way. We could be friends, but that was all. He frowned at me and then walked off in a slump. I felt terrible for hurting his feelings.

The next day in poetry club, our teacher gave us a prompt to write a poem inspired by strong emotions. She said we could read them out loud after everyone finished if we wanted to. I wrote about myself overcoming depression, but I chose not to read aloud. 

Then, it was [Guy]’s turn. He went up with his poem, looking right at me the whole time he read.

Guy: “Women don’t know how good they have it. They flash their red hair and get it all. Men work hard and try harder, but what do they receive? Nothing. We’re given barely grains of sand, unlike the green eyes that peer into the soul of a man just to drain it away. Women are draining, pathetic, useless sl*ts. They’re all b****es, giving it all to anyone but guys like us, we—”

I (with my red hair) started shrinking in my seat, until the girls around me started yelling at [Guy] — laying into him really, telling him to leave and never come back to poetry club. He looked right at me and opened his mouth to speak, but before he could, our teacher quieted everyone down. She then turned to [Guy] and told him to leave, stating that hate speech against another student and misogyny weren’t welcome in this club.

[Guy] started yelling that she couldn’t take away his right to free speech and started asking his friends to record this on their phones to show our teacher “breaking the law,” but even his own friends refused. He finally stomped out of the classroom, yelling that women were all against him.

In the end, [Guy] was booted from the club and finally left me alone. My teacher apologized to me for not taking me seriously before, as did my shocked classmates for brushing me off.

The girls in my class standing up for me that day is something I’ll never forget. I don’t wish ill on that kid even now, but man, did I dodge a bullet by not going on that date.

In my ninth-grade physical science class, the teacher told us we could have one single-sided page of notes to use during the final exam. About a week before the exam, one enterprising kid wrote out a page of notes, made copies, and quietly started selling them in class for $5.

A girl in the class went over to [Kid]’s desk, grabbed one of the sheets, and walked to the teacher’s desk at the back of the class. She handed it to the teacher and very indignantly told him what [Kid] was doing. The teacher looked at the sheet, read it for a minute, looked at [Kid], and said:

Teacher: “Class, it has come to my attention that [Kid] is selling note sheets. If you didn’t know about it, these are very good notes. I suggest everyone buy one from him.”

The girl was furious but couldn’t do anything. The teacher kept [Kid]’s notes, however, and made the test based on what was not on the sheet. About 75% of the class got a C or worse.