The (true) Story of How I Came to be Called Carpenterpants by Mr. R_____

I’d like to tell you about Mr. R___. When you walk into his room, you know he means business. Mr. R___ is one of the strictest teachers in the whole school, with rules like “NO TROMBONE PLAYERS” and “NO BROWN PANTS ALLOWED” emblazoned in bold letters on the wall. While these rules are important (they essentially preserve the integrity and honor of the A.P. Biology curriculum in the classroom), there’s one rule that towers over these, trumps all, tramples all the helpless, brown pants-toting trombone players in the county…and I am uncertain whether I am proud or ashamed to say that I may be the only student in the history of F____ High School to have stood up to this rule. It’s probably a happy mixture of the two, with pride looming over my ego on good days and shame blanketing my soul in storm clouds the next. Regardless, there is seldom a day that goes by without me playing that scene over and over and over and over in my helpless, hapless mind.

It was the first day of class, or maybe it was the second (what does it matter now?), and I was filled with teen angst, which manifested itself in the form of unrelenting sarcasm and wittiness. Mr. R____ was laying down the law in the classroom, setting the standard for the year to come. “I have three rules in this classroom, and I expect you to adhere to them stringently. A classroom cannot function without order. You need discipline and order. Without these, you will all fail at A.P. Biology. So! The rules. NUMBER ONE! No trombone players. NUMBER 2! No brown pants. And NUMBER THREEEEEEEE! [silence] [more awkward silence] Mr. R____ looked around the room with the eye of that one guy in that Poe story about the scary man with the eye. [silence + scan of room with scary poe eye] “Not a one of you will wear carpenter pants unless you come to school with a hammer in the loophole and calluses on your hands!” With that, the rules were laid. There would be no contesting. From anybody. Except me.

I raised my feeble little hand. Mr. R____ saw it and looked me in the eye with an air of surprise. “You. Do you have a question about the rules?” “Can I wear carpenter pants?” Did I just ask that? Am I out of my mind? “Of course you can’t wear carpenter pants! The rule is no carpenter pants, unless you are a carpenter. Are you a carpenter?” The last question was stated in that ‘huh? huH? HUH?’ sort of way and I was intimidated for a fleeting moment. I stood my ground. “Yes. Yes, I am a Carpenter.”

And with that, the spell was broken. Mr. R____ was broken. The entire philosophy of A.P. Biology was shattered into fragments of what once was the A.P. Biology curriculum. “Well then. Yes, you may wear carpenter pants.”