JOANNE
PAYLING
Diary #8
The Booby Prize
Confession time. Against district policy, I showed five minutes of a video at the end of two class periods on Friday. District policy states that any video to be shown in the classroom is to receive official approval first. I knew this. But what trouble could I get into, I reasoned, showing five minutes of Jimmy Buffett, one of my favorite entertainers, singing a song or two from the 70's? It was supposed to be a booby prize for the students who didn't win the Call of the Wild Best Summary of Chapter One Contest. Talk about the booby! Maybe someday I will laugh about this, but right now, I am waiting for the phone calls to the principal and my subsequent formal reprimand. The video I had in hand contained pre-MTV videos of Jimmy singing "Pencil Thin Mustache," a song harking back to the good old days of Errol Flynn and Ricky Ricardo; the other was his romantic "Come Monday" in which he sings of having spent "four lonely days in a brown L.A. haze and I just want you back by my side." Innocent, right? I had watched the video and totally forgotten the scene from "Mustache" in which a young Buffett is trying to hire a streetwalker, doesn't have enough money, so enters the neighboring x-rated movie theater. My kids watched this, hooting and hollering. It lasted less than a minute, but they saw and understood, all right. I was aghast. Make that two Booby Prizes Next class, still trusting my instincts, I simply fast-forwarded through that song and showed the ever so sweet "Come Monday." Safe, right? A double entendre scene I had discounted as being too advanced for 13 year olds did me in. This time, Jimmy's girlfriend is squeezing an orange into his mouth, the juices dripping off his chin and he is feeding her a banana. Never underestimate the sexual knowledge of today's 13-year-olds. Again, the scene was short, certainly no more than 20 seconds. Once again, the class was hooting and hollering. No question that they fully understood the double entendre there. Will I ever again show a video without prior approval in my classroom? Never. Will I ever trust Jimmy Buffett to play it straight? Never. (That is part of his charm, after all.) Will I ever underestimate 13-year-olds again? Never. They are light-years ahead of me at that age. Will I ever trust my judgment again? Certainly not when it comes to videos, Jimmy Buffett, and 13-year-olds. I hope I can laugh about this some day. I'll find out, Come Monday. And yes, I know exactly who won the booby prize this week.
