I married a hall monitor

After moving into our new neighborhood, it has become painfully apparent to me that some people out there don’t like following the rules. For those people, I have a quick and easy solution for you: Move. The Hall Monitor has arrived, and he’s taking names.

My life as a hall monitor started way back in the fifth grade at Mt. Olive Elementary School. The first week of class we had elections for class officers — president, vice president, treasure, secretary and hall monitor. No one wanted to be the hall monitor but me.

I alone understood the importance of the job: making sure people didn’t run in the hallways, quickly cleaning up spilled chocolate milk or orange juice, and the biggest responsibility of all — keeping hallway 3-B bully-free. Not to mention the prestige of wearing a two-inch wide orange strap across my chest with a shiny gold badge.

Besides, being the hall monitor, you got to do something none of those other officers could. You got out of class 10 minutes early every day. Little did I know that humble beginning would be the start of my 20-year career as a public servant.

In the seventh grade I was on the Safety Patrol. Safety Patrol was just like being a hall monitor, except you got to go outside. One lucky student from Mrs. Newsome’s class was chosen, and I was it.

But I wasn’t her first choice. Blabber Mouth Betsy was. Mrs. Newsome figured if she saw anyone doing anything wrong, Betsy would tell on them. And she was right. For the first month of school she set the record for handing out violation slips.

Fortunately for me, it wasn’t the only thing she was passing out. Betsy got some kissing sickness and was out of school until Christmas; this left a void in the Safety Patrol position, promptly filled by yours truly. Not only did I get another gold badge and a two-inch-wide strap – this time in white. I also got a safety whistle.

I blew my safety whistle in the mornings when it was time to unload the buses. Blew it again in the afternoon when it was time to load them. I blew it when it was safe for students to cross the street, when anyone ran in the hallways, or I saw anyone doing anything unsafe. That’s what got me into trouble.

I blew my safety whistle at Principal Baker when he was kissing that woman in the parking lot – I didn’t want him to get a kissing sickness. That was the day he took away my safety whistle. But in my defense, how was I supposed to know he was kissing his wife?

At the end of the school year as a reward for our diligent efforts to keep our fellow students safe, all of the members of the Safety Patrol took a week long trip to our nation’s capital, Washington, D.C. We almost didn’t get to go because it was the same time as the infamous hippie sit-in. From what I saw, it was more like a lay-in than a sit-in.

Everywhere we went, hippies were lying on park benches, on the steps of the capital, and even on the lap of the Lincoln Memorial! Principle Baker returned my red and white safety whistle, and I blew it at them for the entire week. There was a bunch of kissing going on. I bet a lot of those hippies got sick.

Much to my disappointment, when I graduated to Briarwood High – home of the mighty Buccaneers — they didn’t have hall monitors. They had something even better: Teacher’s aides. But this story is about being a hall monitor. The story about my illustrious career as a teacher’s aide is for next month.

As The Wife and I drive around our new neighborhood, I spot basketball goals, trailers, those dreaded lawn gnomes, and trash cans next to houses. All are violations of the covenant, the one-inch thick document handed out to new homeowners in our subdivision. The violators are duly noted by the hall monitor, that’s me, and turned into the homeowners’ board.

I told The Wife, “I enjoy enforcing the rules so much, I should have been in law enforcement.” She said, “No. You wouldn’t have lasted long. Your fellow police officers would have gotten tired of you and shot you.”

She’s probably right. Guess I’ll just be happy being a hall monitor ... or perhaps the president of our new homeowners’ association?