Mama Mia!

My office is directly next to another empty office, both which the school secretary can see into.  Due to privacy concerns with day-to-day office traffic, none of the other school positions which warrant the use of an office have ever wanted the one next door.  As a result, we've always used it as a sort of multipurpose room.

One of it's top uses is to house students who have been removed from lunch and/or recess or either disciplinary or medical reasons. It makes sense since the secretary can easily provide supervision.  That's not to say she's in love with this extra responsibility during the day.  The room is often filled with less than our best each midday.

A couple years back we had a student, Jamal, who ate many a lunch in the office.  Jamal (a 5th grader) was really a nice kid and had many likable qualities, but he was impulsive and frequently in trouble.  On this particular day, I saw Jamal bringing his hot lunch into the small office as I worked at my desk.

Three or four minutes later I heard a dull pop followed by screams from Jamal.  I wheeled in my swivel chair and looked out at my secretary who eyes had gotten very wide.  Jamal was still screaming like he was in serious pain so I leaped up and race around the corner into the other room.

There sat Jamal, covered from head to toe, in marinara sauce.  The hot lunch had been ravioli and it comes preheated in a cellophane sealed cafeteria try.  Apparently Jamal had decide he would somehow 'pop' open the ravioli by somehow punching the top, but must have also used quite a bit of force.

Not only was his face and clothes covered with hot marinara (he was fine... no injuries other than pride), but so was the ceiling, the carpet, the ugly office pictures of beach scenes that hung from the wall, the side pages of his text books, the phone, the chair upholstery, the blades of the fan... everything.  The room looked like a scene from the end of The Godfather.  Talk about natural consequences!

(After knowing Jamal was okay) I had to excuse myself to my office so I wouldn't piss myself from laughter.  Though our building custodian was none to happy, the rest of us got a huge kick out of the whole thing.  No one was hurt, nothing was really damaged, and Jamal learned to peel off the cellophane.