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Lessons Learned

So let me tell you fine folks out there who are still in high school a tip.  Never…. and I mean NEVER…. put wadded up paper through the openings in a running vent or heater.  I bring you, one of my most embarrassing moments:

Five or six years ago, it was a high school day like any other day.  My best friend Luke and I were sitting in class.  The room was dead silent.  Noise was not an option for the 6th period you see, because this was a Study Hall.  Room 206 is composed of two rooms that had the wall knocked out between them and thus it is rather large and oblong.  The desks are all turned to face the front of the room, which is about 80 – 100 feet away from the back row.  Like all budding prodigies, Luke and I sat in the back corner.

The teacher who oversaw the period was Mr. Koontz.  A rather portly gentleman, who waddled ever so slightly when he walked, but had a demeanor that he carried which led one to “behave” despite other urgings.  That is… except me…. because I’m stupid.

It was raining outside, and with no homework to do, looking outside wasn’t all too pleasing.  I was turned backwards in my chair and talking to Luke who sat behind me in hushed voices so as not to let them travel the 100 feet to the ears of Mr. Koontz.

While talking I was ripping up a piece of white notebook paper into small sections, then wadding them up and tossing them into the vent beside me.  The blowers were running inside of the vent and anything I put inside was softly tossed back out to me.  All was going fine until a misplaced wad of paper made its way to the sweet spot.  It hit another object that was in the vent previous to my interaction with it, and thus dislodged the object.  The object started to move and was touching the blower wheel, thus producing a whining noise.  My eyes instantly lit up.  I looked around and no one else really noticed at first except for Luke and I.

Then it grew louder.  And louder.  And LOUDER.  Soon the vent was spewing bits of yellow paper and random items into the air amidst a loud humming and whining the likes of which had never been heard by any human being to ever have thrown items into a vent.  (I know this because if anyone ever HAD experienced this, they would have invented a screen to block items from going into the vent in the first place to spare someone what I was about to go through!)

By now the vent was so loud that it sounded like a playing card taped to a bike fender as the spokes hit it.  The loud thumping and flying bits of paper drew all sorts of attention to that back corner of the room.  I did the only thing I could think of…. I put my head down and pretended not to notice…

By this point Luke is laughing extremely hard and pointing his finger at me.  What are best friends for, right?  So every eye in the room is on me and Mr. Koontz is waddling slowly back down the aisle and I’m thinking, “FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, PLEASE STOP MAKING NOISE!”  It didn’t.  That was the longest time ever.  It must’ve taken only 10 seconds to walk those 80 or so feet, but man did it seem like 5 minutes to me!

I looked up like a dog caught digging in the garden.  “So what’d you do?” he asked.

“I put some small bits of paper in there…. not this stuff that’s flying out though… I must’ve knocked it loose,” I replied.

He just shut off the vent and shook his head… and that was that.  Now I know you’re thinking, that was rather anti-climactic… Trust me, if you were there, it wasn’t.  I was scared to death and it was freaking hilarious to Luke (and to me afterwards)!

So the moral of the story is, if you’re ever sitting in a study hall and you sabotage the vent to make loud noises and everyone is staring at you, don’t pretend you don’t notice it…. Instead, laugh and point at someone else before they can point at you.

So what’s your most embarrassing moment?