Public Access

Fact: my Algebra 2/Trig teacher Mr. Ford either never learned my first name or chose to ignore it and call me either Blake's little sister or by my last name. I was never particularly bothered by it as I was never one of his favorite students and he was never one of my favorite teachers. He was SUPER nice in every other way, i.e. very generous in my grade, we just weren't meant to be besties. I thought of Mr. Ford today and remembered a mortifying incident from his class and thought you might like to take a trip down memory lane with me.

When the OJ Simpson trial was happening, a group of kids in my class (including at least Kari, Ricky, Adam - who kept a large stuffed moose in his desk - and I) and I decided to parody the trial for a science project. One aspect of the assignment was that we had to do something publicly, so instead of just stealing a camcorder from someone's parent and making a video, we headed on down to the public access station. To say that it was a clever idea would be a complete falsehood. To say that we were well rehearsed and TV ready would be another complete falsehood. This little skit was the worst thing ever. We ever-so-cleverly came up with the concept that "Citrus Juice 'CJ' Sampson" was on trial for some crime against the environment and Marcia Bark and Judge Plants Ito...well to be completely honest I can't really remember what the story was, but it was terrible.

Five or six years later was when I had Mr. Ford. One day after attendance and before the lesson, with the whole class ready to spend second period getting our math on, Mr. Ford turned to Kari and I, who had been in many of the same classes since our public access days, and asked if we had younger siblings. Both being the youngest in our families we were kind of surprised and said we didn't. He then told us of how he saw some kids on public access that looked a lot like us. After we admitted to it being us and remarking that it was amazing that they were still playing that terrible piece of history five years later, Mr. Ford was about to tell the whole class about the plot, I had to deflect the negative attention. "What were you doing watching public access?" At which point the class shifted the path of their collective judgment ray to Mr. Ford, which was absolutely my plan. He then said he was channel surfing and saw kids that looked like us, and then he started in with the lesson. After class he told me that he knew it was the two of us because our names were on the credits and he just wanted to embarrass us. And then I mocked him for sitting through the whole thing, something I'm pretty sure I never even accomplished.

Sometimes I wonder how many times that pathetic little video has been played. Hoping to avoid the inevitable anxiety spiral that would stem from that kind of thinking I lie to myself and think no one except Mr. Ford could ever make it to the end of that trash.