DTWhatnow?

I own a small business. Very small. So small it is rightly considered a niche industry, but our customers are loyal and the number of them is expanding. As we gain new customers we run into supply issues, so we have to spend what money we bring in on restocking our shelves.

For a while I was able to take a salary from my own store, but, unfortunately, that luxury had to be discontinued in order to pay the electric bill (which, by the way, is a crazy amount higher than residential electricity even though it's the same damn electricity, and someone needs to explain this phenomenon to me).

I had to get a new source of income, and, as it happened, I found one relatively quickly. The tricky part was to do this and be able to keep the store open. Looking at the statistics, I found that it would be easy just to change the hours and open up for daily business in the mid-afternoon. Most of our customer base are professional types and they get their stuff on their way home, so I was looking for a job that I could do in the morning.

It was suggested that I apply to the school district. I liked school once, to I gave it a shot.

I was hired to work as a Middle School paraprofessional, essentially a tutor and support system for students who need extra or special attention. It was perfect. I could keep the store open at reasonable hours, pay my personal bills and eat, AND the money the store made could go back into bills and inventory. Excellent.

The first kid I was assigned to work with was an athlete, which is good for me, as I enjoy sports a great deal. He was also super handsy. I called him The Claw behind his back. I'm a delight to work with.

The school I was a STEM school, so there was a robotics class that was super cool. I didn't have this option when I was a kid because school wasn't creative enough to have such programs. These are eighth graders, so the robots they were working on weren't too complex, but still....robots, bro.

About two weeks into the job, right when it seems like all of the rhythms and routines of the school day had been figured out, it all started to go to shit. The Claw, in the middle of robots class, says to me "Mr. Derby," (that never EVER gets old, by the way) "do you know what DTF means?"

The record in my head screeched to a halt. I mean, I DO know what DTF means, I watched the hell out of some Jersey Shore when I was recovering from a knee surgery, so I know from the lingo of the douche. I was truly taken aback by the question. "Mr. Derby, do you know what DTF means?"

At this point there are several students looking directly at me, awaiting an answer. "Say what?" I delayed.

"I got an email from a girl saying she's DTF. What is DTF?"

"What? Get off your email and do some work," I stalled. Then the 13 year old terrors that were surrounding me sharpened their teeth. They were getting ready to attack.

"I'm going to look it up," said a normally nice child, who was about to start typing questions into Google once he was done throwing eye daggers through my soul.

"NO DON'T DO THAT!" I spat out hurriedly. They knew. They knew it was something bad, that they can't say or read in a public school. They fucking knew. They also now knew that I did, in fact, know what DTF means.

They started to gang up on me. A helpless feeling, because I couldn't tell them the truth, and any lie that I come up with is going to be fact checked within a nanosecond of saying it. I tried to deflect their curiosity back to the assignment.

The teacher, by the way, was no help, as she was busy doing other stuff. It was me and the wolves. I put on my mental war paint, went into the fray of excuses battling it out in my brain and started to pull out answers.

Do Those Fractions.
Dr. Tobias Funke (they didn't get the reference)
Dog Treats Forever
Dragons Trust Falcons
Donuts Taste Fun

Then it happened. One of the little monsters looked it up. He was a nice boy. He gasped loudly and slammed his laptop closed. Then the prevailing sound was little monster fingers on keyboards. I had failed. I had failed in so many ways. I failed to keep them on task, I failed to distract them enough where they wouldn't care about what DTF means, I failed to lie well enough to convince them that donuts actually do taste fun or there is a bond between flying predators.

Two weeks into this job and I was beginning to wonder if I could do continue, as I had been so completely owned by a pack of youths.

They figured it out, and once the giggling stopped, and The Claw got sufficiently embarrassed for receiving an email and not telling anyone who it was from, the period was over and they moved on to the next class. My terror was pretty much over, at least for the time being.

"Mr. Derby, do you know what DTF means?"
Yeah, you little bastard. It means Down To Fuck. Now do your goddamn work.

If only I could have just said that..........sigh

-SD