Excerpt
It wasn't a nuclear bomb.
It wasn't a pandemic.
It wasn't a plague.
It wasn't another world war.
It wasn't even global warming or a new Ice Age.
No, the end of civilization, our beloved society as we know it, came on gradually; and I remember when it started. Better yet, I know who was responsible.
In the year 2000, I was in the seventh grade at a small junior high school in Decorah, Iowa, when I first encountered unadulterated, pure evil, and it was in the ISS room. At that time in my life, I rarely got into trouble, unlike now. Trouble has a way of finding me now big time. Back then, however, I was pretty shy and introverted. I would usually panic when the teacher called on me; I'd stammer or mumble and look like a complete idiot. However, I guess I did pretty well on tests because I'd usually bring home straight As. My parents were very proud and supportive.
So, what got me sent to ISS? Oh, wait. For those of you who were good kids in school, you probably don't remember what those three initials stand for. Let me refresh your memory. They stand for—In School Suspension. The ISS room, which served as the holding pen for troublemakers, deviants and the Future Criminals of America Club, had no windows and was in the basement of the school. The dreaded room was right next to the boiler room, so it was usually very hot, stuffy and dusty. There was an old hag of a woman who was the supervisor. I'm sorry to portray her with such an unkind description, but she was really mean and made us sit with our hands folded all day, staring at the front wall. We actually did call her "The Hag." I remember seeing her each morning when she would have this horrendous scowl on her face and grumbled as she descended the stairs to the ISS room. One time I passed her and she smelled really bad. It was that old-people smell ramped up a few notches on the stink meter. Someone once told me she had been at that school since she graduated from it back in the Stone Age.