Stupid Rules
"Excuse me son, but you’ll have to put your name on a slip of paper for me."
Shit, I thought. It’s the first day of school and I am already getting in trouble. I can’t believe this. Well I had to argue, since I had no idea why I was being asked to put my name on a slip of paper. The guy responds, "because you are wearing a hat." First day of school and I already lose my hat. What is next?
Now don’t get my wrong, usually I’m pretty shy and won’t argue with a teacher, but this just didn't make any sense. So I started arguing with this guy. Little did I realize he was the head of the ROTC thing in my school. (ROTC is the army type training program in our high school.) I didn’t care though, all I wanted was my hat, and I had lost it because I had walked into the cafeteria to buy breakfast and forgot to take it off. I lost it.
The man told me that I'd have to ask my parents to call the school to get my hat back. This made me really angry. I just didn't understand it, but I have to do what they say, so I gave in. First day of school, lost my hat, and my parents are going to be mad because they have to call the school and ask permission to get my hat back.
When I got home I told my parents. They thought it was pretty strange that my hat was taken away because I forgot to take it off, but they really didn’t say anything to the principle. All they did was tell her something like "He will remember next time to take off his hat." Or some shit like that. Hey, but I got the hat.
My school has never liked hats, but what’s wrong with them. The only distraction they have ever caused me is the fact that they get taken away from me. I have long hair, my hair is more of a distraction that my hat, that’s what keeps my hair out of my eyes. I thought to myself, why are they enforcing the rule of no hats so strictly when there are other problems? These include the fact that you can’t even go into a bathroom because it stinks so bad from cigarette smoke, the fact that people steal from our bookbags and lockers, and that people are intimidating us to the point that we think we are going to get beat up. I guess people look at all the little problems and forget the big ones. (Kind of reminds you of our government, huh?)
Why must my school, and many others, enforce a rule that is so pointless, when they could be helping the actual students live their school lives a little bit easier.
Why? Because it’s something to do.