Hooligans

 It's a study in contrasts, really. 

One was a fifth grade boy who brought a number of bottles of Fart Spray. I am not sure if that is a brand name or not, but his use of the contents therein made the lower floor of classrooms smell like a sewer for the better part of the day. Our TK teacher went down shortly after lunch to douse the area in Lysol, which I'm pretty sure is a brand name, so feel free to adapt this blog entry into a commercial advertisement to help defray the costs of bringing it to you. 

What made this one unique was the sheer bombast of the event. It wasn't any sort of controlled release, allowing fellow students or staff to sniff about and say, "What is that?" And continue with their day. It was a saturation event that may or may not have been completely intentional. Who would expect an eleven year old to measure out in advance just what is funny and what is offensive. Like so many great comedy minds, he stepped over the line of subtlety into overkill. This also had the effect of making it much easier to root out the suspect and apply the necessary trip to the principal's office. After a moment or two of wide eyed shock and dismay for being wrongfully accused, he caved to the number of his peers who pointed a finger directly at him. Without hesitation. 

Then there was the matter of the purple post-its. 

Walking down the stairs after school I noticed one lone purple post it stuck on the tile wall. A random act of defacement that served the simple purpose of drawing a sigh from me just before I pulled it down and crumpled it up, in search of the nearest garbage can. On my way there, just a few steps away, I spied another purple post-it. This one was also blank, like the previous one, stuck to the wall at about the same height: eye level for a nine or ten year old. Removing that one took just a moment as I added it to the wad of paper in my hand, but as I looked down the hall I noticed a third. A few paces beyond that a fourth. The trail of purple post-its continued down the hall as I moved from the left to the right as the path dictated, continuing to add to the crumpled bits I held in my fist. 

As it turns out, there were forty-some purple post-its spread throughout the school, all at roughly the same height, each just a few feet away from one another. I felt compelled to appreciate a few things about this act of very minor delinquency. From whatever point they started out, the miscreant made a point to spread what seemed to be a rather large stack of purple post-its to mark their path. It became a treasure hunt, of sorts, and as I took each one down I was happy that none of them were accompanied with dirty words or slanderous sayings about any classmates or teachers. Just the purple post-its. They came down with only the slightest effort on my part, and I will confess to having a smile cross my face as I made my way from the bottom floor to the top, across the breezeway past the principal's office, all the way to the front door. I appreciated the commitment to the bit, and the fact that it didn't hurt anyone, but rather simply increased my daily step count. 

And it didn't stink. 

I wouldn't mind catching up to this prankster, not to punish them but rather to give them the mild attention they deserve. 

Contrasts.