Spit In My Spaceage Locker XL5000

Part 27 of 30 -- Guidance Counselor series

Here’s one for the books, my filthy locker that needed cleaned before I could graduate. And the guidance counselor took the same position as the school administration, that it was my responsibility either to clean it or pay $100, a lot of money.

This one needs a tiny bit of explanation. I was assigned the locker at the beginning of first year (of three years in our town). It was literally next door to where the wrestling team met and far from where I normally hung out. I immediately quit using it when I met a girl who let me share her locker. Her locker mate had dropped out. Then a guy I knew from Sunday School who was my original locker mate dropped out too. So our locker was abandoned.

Somehow, then, the locker abandoned by me "popped open." And unknown wrestlers and others, experimenting with chewing tobacco and other scummy pursuits, spat in it over and over. If they wanted good luck, they spat in the locker. If they had a tough opponent coming up, they spat in the locker. Over the years I periodically went by it and noticed it was open and I’d push it shut, but since the lights were bad down that hallway I didn’t notice the mess.

So the time for graduation came and I was tagged for having a dirty locker! It took a while to realize they were dinging me for the original locker, unused by me for three years. But when I went to look at it -- damn right, it was dripping with spit, with plenty more, years worth, encrusted everywhere. And not just that but dust balls that float randomly through the air. Everything you’d expect a sewer to be if sewers came in locker form. And now they expected me to pay $100 to clean it up...

Well, guess what, I said a little prayer, “Help me out of this mess. Some a-holes spat in my locker! Amen.” The very next thing, one of the janitors that I was halfway friends with came down the hall. He didn’t know the spit locker was mine but was sympathetic when I told him. Sympathetic to the point of taking me to his closet and sharing some of the original literature that came with the lockers.

You see a piece of it in the graphic. That brand of lockers was advertised as self-cleaning! Meaning, cleaning it should not my problem. And if the self-cleaning mechanism was broken, it was the school’s responsibility to fix it. The fact that the lockers were put in in the early ‘50s had nothing to do with it.

I explained the problem to a friend in the debate club, and he presented my case to the school board, who had to agree, the defendant didn’t owe a cent. The school was at fault!

So where does this leave the guidance counselor? Thanks, bud, for stabbing me in the back once again. After the great times we spent together, you doubted me one last time. But a big thanks to the janitor and his wife Deidra, who also had me over for donuts. She commiserated with me, saying how sorry she was that some bad boys spat in my locker. I patted her hand and told her truly, “That means a lot to me.”

Truth and Tobacco Spit

To me, the picture says it all. It's the age-old story, as old as time itself -- Abel and Cain -- yet told again and again, ever new: Two brothers of the same flag who can't get along, try as they may.

These two guys share the same story. There's good and there's evil, one who lives for truth and one who lives for chewing tobacco. As far as I'm concerned, there's no competition; truth wins every time hands down, because I have literally never been a fan of chewing tobacco. And I had the chance!

The man I grew up with, other than my dad, my grandfather, was a dedicated follower of the unholy chewable weed. From the time I was a boy, I just assumed refrigerators came with a tall stack of small cans wrapped in brown paper, his brand being Copenhagen. I never really "discovered" it, since it was always there, part and parcel of life itself. And grandpas chewed it.

In my Grandpa's case, he seemed to have little bitsy teeth, perennially stained with the juice. Here, there, and everywhere, he was chewing, and spitting. Out fishing, working in the yard, and driving, that was his thing. Which never became my thing. This is one of the so-called "temptations" of life that I can honestly say I never felt, and so never acted on. Not even the tiniest smidgen. It's never entered my mouth. Meaning, you'd about have to agree, that I'm a person of truth, not tobacco spit.

That's a great feeling. I hadn't thought of it in quite those terms before. Being never tempted. Because, had I been tempted (and I've never yielded to every temptation I've had), seeing it as a solo venture, I'm sure I would've tried it. But chalk it up to me being a person of truth, at least in this one instance, and not tobacco spit. I'm proud of it and I'm not proud of it, know what I mean?

I do, however, think it's a good lesson on life, because there are those two options; that's indisputable. Truth or tobacco spit, what's it gonna be? You can be a person of truth and your brother can be a person of tobacco spit, obviously, and you're still brothers in every sense of the word, and under the same flag. As long as you don't let it drive you apart.

The illustration shows the terrible division that can come if the negatives of your relationship are allowed to fester. I think the story goes something like this: The brother of truth shared with his brother the dangers of tobacco chewing. Back in Grandpa's day we didn't realize there were consequences to our actions, but today we know, you can get in some serious trouble based simply on choices and the things you do. Tobacco chewing can cause mouth cancer, and who knows what else.

The brother of truth, as the saga goes, elicited a tentative promise from the other, who was to seal the deal by getting both professional help and options other than chewing tobacco. These would include gum, mints, and you know something else that's good to chew, although most people have never heard of it, these licorice sticks that are almost like wood. They make an interesting chew. I remember talking with a man in the early 2000s who chewed these, but then soon died of other causes. True story.

You've probably guessed the end. The evil brother never "found the time" to set up an appointment for professional help, vowing on their common flag that he had the strength to end the habit on his own. But what happens when the good brother comes home? He finds him with a plug the size of a cantaloupe! Going at it with everything he can muster! If he'd had jaws of steel and pistons in place of mandibles he couldn't have chewed it with more gusto!

They came to verbal blows, the one calling the other a damned fool, and the evil brother -- it's sickening to think of it -- willfully spitting close to a gallon of spit, like a reservoir, and coating his brother. Then, predictably, one went one way and the other went the other way. And that's it, they left behind their common flag.

I don't know if you're a tobacco spitter or a person of truth. You alone have to live with the consequences.