Waterboarding is for Sissies

I discovered today that I apparently missed my calling as an interrogator.

I had a bit of a mystery in my classroom as someone had played around with the settings on one of our laptop computers.  Considering I teach 6 grade levels a week, two other classes had borrowed the laptops in the past few days, and I host the Robotics Club in my room, I was pretty certain I was not going to discover the culprit out of a pool of over 100 suspects.  So, I figured I would just lecture everyone, beginning with today’s 5th graders.

“So, apparently someone changed the name of one of the desktop icons, which one of my 4th graders discovered yesterday.”

The students started looking around at each other.

“It was Evan!” two of the kids said in stereo before I could say one more word.  I couldn’t believe how quickly I had gotten them to rat someone out.

“What?”  Evan is in Robotics club.

“Yeah, a few weeks ago he messed with the desktop but we changed it back.”

“Well, that’s not it, then.  But I will definitely be talking to him.  This was something that happened recently because it was noticed yesterday.”

“It was Harry!”  someone yelled.  Three other people nodded and murmured, “Yeah, I saw him do it.”

I looked at Harry, who seemed completely bewildered by this sudden onslaught of accusations.

“No, he changed the names of some files, but I changed it back,” another student defended (?) him.

“Harry, you and I are going to talk in a minute,” I said sternly.  “Now, back to what happened yesterday.  Someone changed the Internet Explorer icon to say something different.  I’m sure you were just being silly, but you guys could get me in a lot of trouble by doing things like that.  If people don’t think I’m supervising you enough they could take away the technology, and wouldn’t that be sad?”  Encouraged by the seeming willingness on the part of my class to throw people under the bus, I laid it on thick.

They all nodded that this would, indeed, be sad.

“What did they change it to?” someone asked.

I shifted uncomfortably.

“Purple Mustache,” I said, and waited for the laughter.

Silence.

Slowly, a hand came up.  A quiet voice said, “I did it.”

It was my daughter.

“You did?!!!” I said – along with 15 other people.  My daughter has gotten one conduct mark during her 5 years of elementary school.  The only one I suspected less of changing the icon to “Purple Mustache” is my dog, Wonderbutt.  And that’s only because he didn’t have access to the computer.

Crap, I thought.

“Well, you and I are going to have a serious talk at home tonight, young lady,” I said.  Even though I wasn’t sure about what.

I had no idea that I had this kind of confessional power.  Apparently I somehow mastered the technique of the Guilt Trip without even knowing it.

Now, if I could just master the technique of the Don’t Even Think About It Trip, maybe her teen years won’t be so bad after all.

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