Mr. Stanfield's Accidental Mafia Experience

After only one week back from Winter break, we noticed some concerning differences in our beloved 7th-grade Social Studies teacher Mr. Stanfield. He walked into class Monday morning with his hair slicked back with so much grease it gave people flashbacks to “Goodfellas''.

After an intense interrogation session, the bits and pieces of the story began to fall into place. Mr. Stanfield lived out a lifelong dream of visiting Italy. Well, he couldn’t work it out to actually make it to Italy, so he had to settle for New York City. Even though he was still in the United States, he decided to try and speak Italian the whole time, because as Mr. Stanfield remarked, “When in Rome…” Unfortunately, his time spent at Olive Garden trying to learn the language didn’t lend much help, so he just said YOLO and tried to get by with his Spanish. While in Little Italy he joined a tour group named “Ti perderai" to see all the touristy landmarks his heart desired. At Yankee Stadium, he got separated from his group, and after wandering around he figured they’d just left him. But he found another tour group using his handy dandy globe from home. This new group led him to a speakeasy that then led him down into an underground network of tunnels. He witnessed black markets, and many other things that the group taught him were ok in the world. He ate with his new group at “Poco Speghett” every night, and during the day they held up at a local bakery. “It went by so fast, I hope I don't Fuhgeddabout it,” said Stanfield with a wink.

While this story is concerning, it’s nothing compared to Mr. Stanfield’s new behavior when he returned from break. At school he started teaching us about how to hide things and how to "leave no trace so we don’t get pinched” and talked with his hands a lot. He started wearing the finest silk ties and in every class, he would switch them out at least 8 times. When Stanfield went in search of a 1932 Ford Model 18 at ‘Carz 4 Cheap’ he couldn't find one so he settled for a PT Cruiser. He’s started to influence the other teachers. A concerned 7th-grade challenge student said, “Mr. Jackson started to wear real shoes and Ms. McGaffey started to dress in black leather and ties. Even Mr. Roenicke tried to get with the trend (for once in his life) and attempted to slick his hair back, needless to say, it didn’t work and looked like Stanfield’s rental PT Cruiser had leaked all over his hair.” Don Stanfield even changed his trademark Spanish catchphrases to Italian ones that are slightly more threatening, “E il tempo di segnare 6 minuti per uscire ora.” We’re still don't know what when he meant when he offered something about offers we couldn't refuse.

Don Stanfield even went so far as to offer Mr.Thomas his services in the lunch room for a small fee. “You can never have enough protection around these parts. Its a nice Cafeteria, it would be a shame if something happened to it.” The boldest of moves. Mr. Thomas didn’t really have a choice and our new “neighborhood friend” became Don Stanfield’s consigliere Louis. It was actually Mr. Hansen, but we played along. We allowed him to win in the assemblies and learned about the history of importing Olive Oil in Social Studies.

Finally, a brave 7th grader walked up to Don Stanfield and asked, “ why are you in the Mafia?” After a quick explanation of what the mafia was, Don Stanfield started having an existential crisis. He kept mumbling and started sweating. He took off his many ties and threw them out the window. He found the ties later outside his window and his meltdown returned now screaming in front of the whole school. One 6th-grade challenge kid said to a Shallot member that “I don’t want to be in Don Stanfield’s class.” At that point Mr. Stanfield apologized to his classes for his strange behavior and vowed to never go back there again. He said it in a strange way, we assume that he meant he wasn’t going back to the Mafia, “I ain’t never goin back there. Plus guys, it's called ‘Cosa Nostra.’”