Inadvertently walked in on two teachers discussing their affair in junior high school.

My choir teacher, at the time a young woman in her twenties, was fucking a history teacher in his 40’s who was married to another teacher at the same school. I walked into the room where all the sheet music was stored to get something and they were talking, at which point he immediately turned to me and snarled: “Do you mind?!” I didn’t even hear what they were saying, but in hindsight, the circumstances make it obvious.

I was just a teenager and not expecting this weird moment, was stunned and just backed out of the room. I didn’t put it all together until later because I couldn’t imagine a young woman screwing what I saw as an old man at the time.

I got called in to the office later that day and she’d made an allegation that I’d harassed her and I was going to be suspended, but really, she and history teacher concocted this to cover for themselves in case it got out.

It was an important early lesson in distrusting authority.

There were two brothers in my high school, our last names were similar. And we were always getting in trouble for the other’s actions. When we would hear one of us get called to the office we would meet after class to see if it was a legit getting in trouble or something one of the other two did. We would always trade punishments too.

So literally I got into trouble for having a last name sharing 5/7 letters with someone else’s last name.

Grade 5 or 6, teacher was introducing a project about the wisdom inherent in proverbs (not biblical, traditional sayings). In discussion I opined there was no wisdom in contradictions like “look before you leap” versus “he who hesitates is lost” and “many hands make light work” versus “too many cooks spoil the broth”, the wisdom was knowing which proverb applies to the situation at hand. Sent to the principal and received a beating with a paddle for being a disruptive smart aleck.

This is probably stretching the definition of strange, but I got in school suspension in middle school for having 3 tardies (aka arriving late to school). I rode the school bus to school each day, I had no control over whether I was late or not, so I find it strange to be punished for something like that.

Wearing blue camo shorts in 4th grade because it promotes violence by looking like the military

When I was in high school one lunchtime I was sitting there reading sci fi by myself like a total nerd and some other kids were sitting nearby and they started smoking cigarettes, which was against the rules. Anyway a teacher saw them just as the lunch period ended and the teacher said: “all right You, You, You, and You stay behind!” And the teacher pointed at me, because I was nearby. I was like: wow, I haven’t been in trouble before! I was writing a lot of short fiction and poetry at the time so I thought it’d be a good experience. So I sat there and listened for a while as the teacher berated the kids. But eventually I realized I’d gotten all I was gonna get from this teacher’s unimaginative lecture, so I stood up and was like: I gotta go to class. The teacher glared at me and was gonna go off, but the other kids were cool, they were like nah he wasn’t a part of this. The teacher looked at me, looked at my sci fi book, looked at me again, then realized yeah these kids would never have anything to do with this dork. So they let me run off to class.

Myself and a friend decided to share a cigarette in the toilets one day. This was fairly common practice way back then. You’d get someone to look out and they would cough if a teacher was coming. It wasn’t flawless but it has a high success rate.

So we’re utterly destroying one cigarette between the two of us as quickly as we can and there’s a cough followed by loud banging on the door. We’re rumbled.

“OPEN UP. I KNOW YOU’RE IN THERE”

So we open the door, sheepishly.

“WHAT WERE YOU BOYS DOING IN THERE?”

Now we’re both confused and look at each other. I timidly reply:

“Smoking, sir”

“WELL I HOPE THAT’S ALL YOU WERE DOING”

and the man stormed off. We couldn’t believe our luck. Smoking apparently A-OK once you’re not being gay.

Barred from the school computers for Responsible disclosure of a security laps in the school computers.

Turned out of you open Encyclopaedia Britannica application and select the open document window it brings up the regular windows open file dialogue window. If you pressed the up folder enough times you went from your local profile to the folder on the server that contained every users files and you had full read right privileges in all student folders.

I reported it to the it desk and was barred from using the school computers for a month for hacking the school computers.

When the letter was sent home about it dad wanted to know what I had done so I told him and he thought, yea you did the right thing I’ll call the principal and get this sorted.

Dad use to be the treasurer of the parent teacher committee so he knew the school admin quite well. My teacher for computer studies got a note from the principal the next day that I was permitted to use the computers again.

In computer class I searched “gay porn” on my friends computer when while he was gone. The teacher saw me do it and sent me to the principal’s office where I got in trouble for being gay. When I got home my parents were also upset. Apparently the principal called them to tell them I was gay! I was really confused as to why being gay seemed to be the issue and not searching for porn on a school computer and that’s how I learned about homophobia!

I was a very well behaved kid, but somehow got punished multiple times for absolute bullshit reasons.

I think the most inexplicable was when I had changed schools. My old school was strict about sun safety. Hats were expected every time we were outside. The new school was the opposite, not allowing hats to be worn indoors at all, because they were only worn by rebellious kids or something.

I still wore one at lunch out of habit, and because I burn easily. One time I was going from one outdoor area to another, and had to pass through a covered walkway. It would have been 2 seconds under cover, but a teacher saw me. I got detention and my hat was confiscated.

Brought a flail to school, for “punk day”. Oak, leather-wrapped handle. 3 heavy 3-foot long chains. Brass hardware. Magnificent.

Physics prof face was total anxiety.

Oh ya, he took it away for the day. I took it home no prob.

I made it. The brass part was from a lamp post. Not exactly military grade but I could fuck stuff up.