St. Valentines Day Massacre

That I am a wise ass there can be little doubt.

Fortunately, despite many years of therapy, I am still quite blessed with an almost complete lack of self awareness and reflection, which means unless someone is standing over me telling me…”Hey Dude, you better really think about not sending that email telling that (co-worker, boss, friend, musician, vendor, Irish guy trying to give you a really good deal on getting your driveway repaved) to GO FUCK THEMSELVES.. I probably will do it again and again. I am kind of stuck in a loop. Although those stickers I put next to my keyboard that say DO YOU REALLY WANT TO SEND THAT EMAIL! Actually do help sometimes.

Ok, I am kind of kidding, I really don’t tell everyone whom I want to go fuck themselves, I have learned some level of restraint.

Although the folks in my organization who witnessed me tell the guy who walked by my house one day, who I smiled and said good morning to, which I might add took a year off of my life, and he walked right on by… I checked for headphones, I clapped to make sure he wasn’t deaf… so I screamed out after him.. WHAT THE FUCK! I SAID GOOD MORNING SIR!

On St. Patricks day… of all days I actually did tell one of those Irish guys offering to spray paint your driveway and pretend its sealer or whatever scam they run… I told him to Fuck on off after he said “Hey Mate, working hard or hardly working….!” I was in no mood for cliches.

Both episodes witnessed by the family narc,’’

In the same respect, sometimes when I get emails from vendors, friends or just random solicitations, I try to come up with a witty rejoinder.

My neighbor texted me last night to ask me a favor while she was going out of town next week, … and without missing a beat I Immediately texted back…”Drown your cats?”

Oh my god no sam no no no no.

Of course not. I like animals more than most people and she doesn’t even have one or two cats. What do I look like PRU from Great British Bake-Off (look that one up. smarty pants.)

At the beginning of last February I got an email from one of our Reps from MAKIN, a company we buy both regular and e-books from. In fact we belong to a consortium with a bunch of other Elementary and Middle School Libraries where we chip in $500 and share $10K worth of Ebooks. Which would be a fantastic deal if I could get more people to stop using their Chromebooks for Games or watching music videos and reading or listening to a book.

Our Rep.. Let’s just call her Jessica, which very well may be her real name… I can’t remember. She asked if there was anything else I needed from her this year?

I am like sure and I sent in a long list of demands which included (in no particular order:):

A life size stuffed dog that I could use as a library mascot

A couple pounds of milk chocolate

And many other unreasonable and bizarre demands!

I pull this shit all the time. People just love my sense of humor.. I mean shit, I get tons of LOL’s that means they are laughing out loud… right?

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Part Two: The Day before Valentine’s Day.

I get a call from the office to come pick up my package. HUZZAH, say I. Hopefully all those books I ordered that had been banned in both Southern States and Southern New Jersey had arrived.

Aside: You want to get a kid to not read a book. Slap an award on it. They see a medal like a Caldecott and it becomes like Kryptonite to Superman. I always tell parents when they ask for book recommendations for Christmas or birthdays.. that across this nations bedrooms are thousands of copies of Caldecott and Newberry books stuck under the beds of the recipients that well intentioned relatives bought for them.

In the same respect. Ban a book and you’ve made it like catnip to a kid.

(Insert long meandering story about the Harry Allard Story The Stupids and how it became an instant classic in my library)

When I was in school… Everyone wanted to take out that Judy Blum book. The sections with the naughty parts were dog eared, circled and so worn out you couldn’t; even tell what the hell all the fuss was about.

But nobody (to my knowledge) at least in the backwater hamlet of East Lansing Michigan tried to ban it. People stayed in their fucking lane. Kids were left to do whatever they wanted short of killing themselves and each other or burning the house down and adults rarely ventured into kid world.. except to smack the shit out of you if you got caught doing something stupid.

When I finally made it down to the office everyone was like “ohhhhh, look at you….aren’t you special… you got a package!” I guess because it was obviously not from one of our book vendors in their tell-tale book vendor boxes I had a mystery package and everyone wanted to know what it was…..

Open it here squealed the secretaries

No way! I know the deal. If I open it here, I am going to have to share whatever it is, beside which it might be that cuttlefish I ordered from H-Mart and I don’t want to stink up the joint.

I skedaddled straight back to the library to see what the Postal gods had sent me.. usually it was free bookmarks from the government accounting office or some stickers via a non-profit. I have enough stickers from PETA to last until every last meat eater finally does renounce his/her selfish ways.

So with very little expectations I tore open the package and I was shock, shock, shocked! It had a couple bags of high end chocolate pieces some (what I thought at the time) Candy Hearts and really pleasant looking stuffed dog.

Jessica from Makin, had actually listened to my wise ass comment and sent me a bunch of the stuff I asked for. WOW! I wish every time I asked for something like the I got it. I guess as they say, it’s just the law of averages. Ask for something and you will eventually get it.

Nice story right?

The End.

—Not Really————————This being me you just know something fucked up is going to happen

Part 3. If this blows up, you know Sam, I am throwing you under the bus.

Oh my fucking god! Yuck!

I had shoved a handful of what I thought were candy hearts in my mouth….You know they say things like “Be mine’ and “Love You’. Only they were shaped like candy hearts, they had writing on them like candy hearts… But they were CARDBOARD. Who the fuck comes up with the shit. What is the goddamned point of making cardboard hearts that look like candy hearts? What sick mind does this shit?

Well at least the chocolate was indeed real, so I had that. And the stuffed dog was cool. I immediately put a pair of sunglasses on him and vowed that under no circumstances was anyone to name him Pete or Dogman or anything uncool. We would have a contest and figure that shit out.

And as far as the cardboard hearts were concerned, I would spread them out on the ledge outside the library as decoration because you know what day it is… Dum, dum, dum…. VALENTINE’S DAY!

So I grabbed the bag of Cardboard hearts and made my way to the front office to sign in. I always get to work early to get my day started, answer emails, play guitar..etc. So no one was there yet. I signed in (and out too for good measure) and because I was feeling the love of the holiday.. I guess Cupid stuck me with an arrow, I sprinkled the cardboard valentine hearts over the sign in sheet and some on our two secretaries desks.

Boy are they all going to love this I thought. I am being a team player, a sunshine group member, someone who says good morning and have a nice day. A team player! Hell, maybe I will get teacher of the month, maybe even……….TEACHER OF THE YEAR!

I went back to the library serene in the knowledge that for once, I had tipped the karma scales in a favorable position good… back from “mess this guy up” which is where it usually is.

To be continued…..

Teachers have to be in the building by 8:10, students get let in @ 8:15. So I am sitting there, it’s about 8:12 and I came up with this really great plan.

Those stupid cardboard hearts aren’t edible…what else can I do with them? Why don’t I walk down the hall and pass them out to kids as they are walking to homeroom. I mean, that’s like teacher of the year type shit. So I grab my bag and head towards the nearest hallway that has homerooms which just happens to be the fifth grade homerooms.. and there they are.. having just been let into the building they are stampeding towards their lockers so I get ready and grab a handful of hearts and start passing them out.

HAPPY valentine’s DAY! I shout out like a crazed Santa Clause… picking up some extra cash for doing another holiday… I am shoving hearts Into everyone’s hands,

At first they are all excited cause like me… they think they are those candy hearts you can eat. I mean what did they think. . I am going to break the one inviolable rule in modern schools. DON’T EVER GIVE KIDS FOOD FROM THE OUTSIDE… YOU WILL NO DOUBT KILL THEM!

So once they decide they can’t eat them.. most just dump them into the trash cans.

But then…………

“Uh… Mr. Shiffman…You better take a look at these heart you gave us…!”

Without even knowing… I knew. I knew in my heart of hearts I had really, really fucked up somehow… cause I know me.. and I ate from the fruit roll up tree of fuck up fruit in the garden of eden. I just knew. Much like I knew, when I printed out “The FBI’s Guide to Concealed Weapons” as a joke, no amount of apologies was going to make that one right…..

Two fifth grade girls came up to me and showed me their cardboard hearts. Emblazoned on the front were the following slogans:

FUCK YOU

YOU SUCK

DROP DEAD

BITE ME

And a couple other less offensive, yet somehow equally offensive slogan. And right behind the girls there was a stampede, a literally stampede of fifth graders… yelling in unison,

“HEY MR. SHIFFMAN… CAN I HAVE SOME OF YOUR VALENTINES!”

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FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK

If I lose this Job because of one of my stupid fucking moronic ADD fueled lack of attention to detail god damned karmic intervention my wife really is going to leave me…I don’t think I can bullshit my way into another teaching job. She will leave me… and leave the kids with me just to completely make sure I go completely ape shit (no offense to any of my children who may be reading this.. you know I love you… but I wasn’t prepared to make sure you were fed and clothed and medicated etc. all by myself at that juncture). Sure super me could do it now with my hands tied behind my back… but 2 years ago. No way,

I AM TOTALLY FUCKED… AND FOR ONCE.. THIS ISN’T MY GODDAMNED FAULT WHY GOD (WHO I DON’T BELIEVE IN…. WHY WHY WHY.)

——————————————Stop———————————

Part Four…. Five ….Whatever,….Is It the end of me… ?

Annette…. Take this bag.

There you have me.. throwing my bag of naughty cardboard hearts at Annette our school behavior specialist who has an office in the library .

For the love of god… Hide it.. I can’t explain….Just make sure no kid….get’s ahold of these. If they ask. Act dumb!

Just say I have no idea what you’re talking about!

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Back up 3 minutes!

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Hey guys.

I really need those hearts back.

I could get in a lot of trouble. I am sure you know why.

Thankfully, these young ladies understood what was at stake for me and kind of appreciated the fact that I was much nicer than the previous yelling, mean librarian… MRS TOMATO….. so they gave them back. Hell they even got the other ones back from the couple of kids that had’t tried to eat them and then spit them out.

But still the yelling.

“HEY MR SHIFFMAN… WE WANT SOME OF THOSE VALENTINES”

“ Oh my god… Mrs. Gonzalez has just gone into labor and as a former cab driver I am the only one in the school who has ever delivered a baby. I have to run stat… get out of my waaaaaaaaaayyyyyy…..move…..people,……….a baby’s coming…….. move,,, move… move….”

I am O.J. Politically incorrect metaphor Simpson leaping over everything in my way vaulting towards the office… to get to the office to get those hearts before anyone see’s them. Everyone is looking at me…

I am trying to keep up the baby scenario… but slowing down a bit.. yup..just on my way to deliver a baby.. nothing to see here. Go to homeroom. Hey… I think lunch today is a choice between squirrel and frog. “That was yesterday” yelled Dallas, whom I can only guess why his parent’s named him Dallas.. but at least he has a sense of humor, “Wednesday is Roadkill Day” He yelled back.

I don’t care… That baby is not going to deliver itself… (although they probably do right if there is no one around.. I think my father was born that way!)

I burst through the office door and there is the Superintendant of Schools.

She doesn’t look unhappy. She doesn’t look happy either. The two office secretaries are just giving me weird looks.

Come with me Mr. Shiffman, Dr. Redacted tells me as she leads me dow the hall.

“Look. If this comes back in anyway… I am so totally throwing you under the bus.. you got that.” “I am not going down… not for this…!”

It’s Groundhog Day. Not literally, like the movie. In hyper speed I am telling this whole funny story about how I sent a witty email asking for a dog and some chocolate and I got.. A dog and some chocolate and some hearts….. And I tried to eat them… and never checked to make sure they didn’t say something vulgar…Silly me… hahahahhahahaha.

I think I kind of saw.. the human being break through the Administrative hardshell for a moment and there was a quick smile.

“You really should give Rosa (the office secretary those chocolates!) She came in and noticed that one of the hearts on her desk said FUCK YOU and before anyone saw them.. she cleaned them up!

However, I had to field several calls from the fifth grade teachers as there are wild rumors about naughty hearts that the librarian was handing out. Nobody actually has one, and while some kids say they saw them, for your sake let’s hope this dies down before it hits home this afternoon.

And by the way.. what the hell is this about you delivering the Gonzalez Baby?

She shook her head and walked away.

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What the fuck just happened to me this morning? This whole story makes no fucking senses did Jessica at Makin set me up? Why?

So I called her and got put into voice mail hell… and then I sent her this story.

Firstly, thanking her for the Dog, the Chocolate and the Drop Dead/Fuck You Valentines

Very thoughtful and funny and hopefully the next librarian here will be just as friendly to Makin as I was.

And I got back this response.

“Oh my god… I didn’t check the hearts! I bought those for my sister. I am so so sorry….!”

Well what can you do. I mean they pulled out those 8 by 10 color glossy photos… wrong meandering story and holiday.

I have some of the most incredible luck of anybody I know. I have met Presidents of foreign countries, I got a Record Deal, For over 10 years Touch and Go records for some unknown reason sent me every single thing they released!

I am also so frigging stupid. I don’t check to make sure the Valentine Hearts don’t say FUCK YOU. I have told my fair share of sociopaths to fuck off including an entire crowd of Exploited Fans at City Garden (which started a riot… which surprisingly was not my first riot)

I put my foot in my mouth all the time.

I say dumb shit.

As I wind this up, let the record show, that in most cases my heart is actually in the right place, I am watching out for you guys. I give a shit. Like the song says… “I CARE A-LOT!”

I just really need to think before I hit send.

6.26.2024

By Samuel Shiffman

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