I Can't Believe It's Come to This

I've become obsessed with my dry-erase markers. At first it was a friendly relationship: I'd gently remember to locate my markers before class started. Now, knowing what I know, I burst in my classroom every morning and unsheathe my markers to take solace in pointy tips and dark ink.

These markers are a commodity at my school. All classrooms have white boards, so a dark-writing marker is more valuable than knowledge itself; I can't hypnotize my students with rhetoric or grammar. No. I need the dark envy of the green marker and the rage of the red marker.

The school provides markers, as they should, but they ration them like we're in a war zone. One new marker a week seems reasonable, but with multiple class periods and grammar lessons running coast to coast on my boards, a pen lasts only about 3 days.

So I made some sacrifices. On Monday, I spent some of my own money to buy an economy pack from Target. I hit the motherload. No more black, red, and green. I got seductive magenta and filthy brown and citrus orange.

And let me tell you, Tuesday's classes were vibrant. I was underlining complete predicates with magenta and writing subordinates in orange. The board looked like a bag of Skittles.

But of course, great success with my pens bred enemies. On Wednesday, I returned to my room from making copies to find that my citrus boardfellow was missing. "I probably just dropped it," I rationalized. I didn't want to suspect my neighboring teachers; suspicion only breeds hatred. By the end of the day, though, there was only one place left to look: Room 13, Ms. Johnson's room.

"Hi, Judo. How was your day?" I exchanged pleasantries while examining the room. And then, I saw the incriminating evidence: Homework: Write 1 page on Montezuma written in my stolen Sunkist shade.

Battlestations.

I stole my pen back when she wasn't looking. Wait. Is it stealing if it's mine?

I hid all my pens behind some books on my shelf, but all Wednesday night I imagined some curmudgeon absconding with my prized pens in the night. I can't believe it's come to this. I'm one of those guys that has actual mini-psychological freak-outs about his pens.

It's not that the pens are expensive. It's not about money anymore. It's about honor. If Ms. Johnson wants to pilfer from me, she's going to face the ramifications. And I'm not talking about the Principal; I'm talking about wartime conditions. I'm talking about grenades of loudness exploding through our shared wall. I'm talking about snipers of insults during staff meetings. I'm a general leading my infantry against her troops in a battle of standardized test scores.

I'm talking about warfare at the middle school.