EXPELLED

Oh my gosh y'all - I have the best story.

This is the story of how I almost got expelled from high school. Yes, me, the innocent one, came so close to getting suspended - if not expelled - from my high school.

Remember that cheerleading sponsor I told you about? Slamb? This is another story involving her. (Note: This would be a million times funnier if I had photographic evidence to support the story, but I've looked and looked for a few months and can't find anything and this story is too good to keep to myself. If I ever find evidence, I'll be sure to post it.)

So, each year during basketball season, the boys team, girls team and cheerleaders would load up on a bus and head to Mobile for the weekend. We'd play UMS on one night and St. Paul's on the other. Our school would spring to put us up at the lovely Red Roof Inn, and while the teams were practicing on Saturday, the cheerleading squad got dropped off at the "mall."

Of all the malls in Mobile, we get dumped at the one with like 10 stores and a snack stand in the middle. We were stranded there for about four hours, so we got a little bored.

After trying on tacky clothes and sampling every item at the makeup counter in Dillard's, someone found a random business card maker in the middle of the mall. Seizing the opportunity to be creative, a few of us made some business cards with fake names and funny jokes on them, and I don't remember who it was that finally got the bright idea: "Hey, let's make Slamb a business card."

Naturally, we selected the hooker icon - it was a tiny picture of a lady with long hair in a black dress and gogo boots bending over a chair. (What kind of hooker has business cards? That she prints in a mall?) We went to town thinking of funny stuff to write on the card, like "Seducer" and "1-800-BIG-HO4U" and all this other stuff that was so, so, SO wrong. Just awful. The machine printed out 4 cards for a dollar and after a good laugh, we moved on. I stuck my copy in my camera case.

Well we cheer at the game that night and ride home on the bus afterward. We get to the high school at like 3 a.m. so it's pitch black and we're all dead tired like zombies so we grab our stuff and go home.

Sunday I am unpacking and I notice my camera case is missing. Hoping I left it on the bus, I go straight to the basketball coach's office on Monday morning to ask if he found a camera case after everyone unloaded.

"Sure," he says. "One of the boys found it and gave it to Mrs. Lamb."

SHUT UP. Slamb had it!? Breaking a sweat, I beelined to her classroom only to find she was out sick for the day. Sick... or meeting with the principal?

I was on pins and needles the rest of the day. Even typing this now my stomach starts turning. If she'd opened the case, she'd find the card with the awful stuff about her and God only knows what would happen from there. I mean, this was a private Christian high school. If chewing gum in class was punishable, imagine what they'd do to kids who called their teachers a hooker and a ho?

Tuesday I nervously head to her room, only to find she was OUT SICK AGAIN. I feared my life. I was convinced she had found the card and was too full of rage and anger to come to work and was meeting with the superintendent and school board to have me and the rest of the squad expelled and sent to hell.

By Tuesday, the whole squad knew about the situation. We had to take matters into our own hands, so after school, several of us got out a school directory and huddled in the lockeroom while I called Slamb.

"Hello?" her daughter answered.

"Uhhhh may I speak to Mrs. Lamb?"

"Who's calling?"

"It's Lindsay."

"Just a second."

"Hello."

"Mrs. Lamb?"

"Hi Lindsay." She was cold as ice. My ear nearly froze to the phone.

"Ummm [gulp, twitch] how are you?"

"Not so good."

Oh my gosh. She found it. She hates me. I'm dead. Gulp. "Oh no, really?"

"Yes, I'm terribly sick."

"Oh that's too bad. Hey, Coach told me that he gave you the camera case that was left on the bus?"

"Yes, is it yours? I haven't open it to see who it belo--"

"NONONO IT'S MINE! IT'S MINE! Haha. No need to open it. Ummm may I come get it? Like, right now? Ummm, I REALLY want to get my pictures developed today."

She agreed and gave me directions to her house and one of the seniors drove me there. I was shaking like a leaf. We carefully pulled up to her house, which was overrun with weeds and evil. We go knock on the door, and as bad as we thought she looked at school, she looked even worse when she was " terribly sick." She had on no make-up and an old ratty bathrobe. I'd have left the case in the mailbox or something. Nonetheless, we grabbed the case from her, ran to the car to check its contents and sped back towards school, laughing all the way.

Everyone else promised to burn their business cards lest they fall into the wrong hands. Of course I kept mind and put it on my bulletin board. But guess what? It's not there anymore. I went to find it to include with this story... wonder who has it now? Oh well. It's not like they can expel me anymore!