Classic Post: "One Cent Poorer"

Here is a post about a story that happened when I was in 4th grade. The key players are my teacher, "Mrs. S.", and the worst kid in the class, "Dick". This was on my previous blog, and I saved it for retelling, which I will do now. Enjoy.


I didn't know much about Dick, my fourth grade classmate, except that in 4th grade, kids really aren't BAD kids yet. Even the "bad kids" are just a bit rowdy, but they still have a healthy fear of incurring their teacher's wrath. Not Dick though. He was a bad kid even then. Had he demonstrated an identical affect, attitude, lack of participation, and sullen attitude at age 16 in high school, it would have labeled him a "bad" kid in high school, but not one that would have raised eyebrows. But in 4th grade, it definitely stood out.

(As an aside, it was rumored later that Dick was left back a time or two in middle school - and since most people turn 14 either during or at the end of 8th grade, if he was left back twice he may have turned 16 during 8th grade - which would have meant that he could have been the first kid, albeit with a learner's permit in NJ, to drive to middle school. Who knows if this was true. Kids like Dick tend to be the kind of kids that exaggerated gossip circulates about anyway.)

So anyway, one day the class was doing some kind of activity. I forget what it was, but I remember that Dick was not participating. He was slouched down in his chair staring at his desk. Other kids noticed but it was not out of the ordinary. While we were doing whatever we were doing, Dick pulled a penny out of his pocket, procured a bottle of Wite-Out, and started to Wite-Out the penny. As kids noticed and watched him doing this, Mrs. S realized that Dick was doing this. She went over to his desk. The wheels turning in her head, the teacher tried to think of something to do or say that would presumably surprise Dick and let him know how bad he was being.

She leans over so her face is about a foot from Dick's, takes the Wited-Out penny demonstratively, and says loudly to him, "Do you know that because of you, this country is one cent poorer?"

Dick doesn't look up, looks at his desk, and says "Oooh" and makes a mocking face as if to say sarcastically "Oh, wow, that is just SO terrible."

Mrs. S. is obviously shocked. She stares at Dick for about 5 seconds and realizes that Dick is a lost cause. She takes the now useless penny and walks away. Dick sits there, left to continue to mope and stare at his desk. When she turns and looks back to the rest of us, we all immediately turn back to our work and get started again, kind of like the scene in "Shawshank Redemption" where Andy is about to get thrown off the roof and talks his way into doing the guard's taxes and then the guard turns and looks and all the inmates are staring and he yells "Get back to work" and they immediately start again.

Now, I wonder if I've invented or distorted any of this in my head, but as I remember, that's how it happened.