Counterfeiting bills anyone?!

Winding down one year is a great time for reflecting on the past. And boy, do I have some reflections....

For one...I quit my TERRIBLE TERRIBLE TERRIBLE (did I mention terrible?!) day job this year. I seriously wanted to quit that job the day I got it. Initially, I wasn't even sure if I HAD it. It was three years ago and I had just moved to NYC. The TERRIBLE dude who hired me called me the very day of my interview to tell me I did infact, have the job, but then did not call me back or answer any of my calls for a MONTH. No big deal. Please. Do not take a job out of desperation! Nothing good can come of it.

The next three years went as followed: HELL.

I worked for this SKETCHY non-profit in Bushwick, Brooklyn. Every day, I'd take the train in the WRONG direction (upside: less people on commute!) and get off at the Wilson Ave stop aka in the ghetto. "Rick James once said, if you ain't from the ghetto, don't go to the fucking ghetto!" So, I worked for this non-proft, counseling middle school kids at risk of dropping out of school. I DID like that aspect of it-the helping of the children.

I had this one student named Angel. A BADASS. Literally, dude was like 15 in the 8th grade and had been arrested numerous times. He and I bonded over Chess and Rummy. He always would drop the word "son" in there. "Ya know son..." etc. I turned to him and said: "Who is this son you keep speaking of?!" He laughed, "haha oh son!" One day, Angel came in and told me he was arrested in New Jersey the night before for ASSAULTING A POLICE OFFICER, no big deal. He laughed as he recounted his story.  His one complaint being that the cuffs in Jersey hurt more than the cuffs in NY. Angel visited me during his lunch every day (he actually went to school) and during any other classes he decided to skip.  Something I did must have worked because he ended up with the "Most Improved Student" award. Hey now!

All of my favorite students were badasses.  I would assist them in writing letters to their parole officers. It was fun times though. We'd all sit around my office, singing along to the latest Lil Wayne, talking b-ball and gangs...

One of my all-time faves, almost got me fired/arrested. Once again, no big deal. I'm going to disclaim this one with I SHOULD HAVE GOTTEN MORE SLEEP THE NIGHT BEFORE/I WAS SORT OF AN IDIOT DURING THIS ONE INCIDENT/CAFFEINE BEFORE STUDENTS!! So, I'd always let this one student make copies of articles and Kobe Bryant pics. He came in early, before homeroom, and wanted to see how it would look to make copies of a dollar bill. I wasn't thinking clearly, with it being early and with my sleep being shit the previous night. I let the kid borrow a dollar bill (I know, I know...). He makes a copy with it on the copy machine and tries to make it as a real looking as possible AS A JOKE. I didn't think much of this (I know, I know..). Bell rings. Day goes on. Next thing you know, the BI-POLAR (literally) crazy wench of a principal (who did the announcements EVERY day in THIRD person) was calling myself and my two co-workers to the office. My dear student had gone and bought an ice cream in the school store with the fake dollar bill! And now, my ass was in TROUBLE. The crazy bitch is yelling at me in third person really fucking loud and I am literally SHAKING. No one has ever really yelled at me! And this is EXTREME yelling! Next thing you know, the police are there. I was freaking out and flushed my dollar bill down the toilet, dead serious. They asked me if I knew that copying a dollar bill was a FEDERAL crime....AH?? Then they started interrogating me about COUNTERFEITING bills. Um. Yeah..Ah...The po-po wanted to see the dollar bill he had copied. Where was that dollar bill? "Ah? I don't know officer!" The next few weeks were even more awful than the normal amounts of awful that my job was. Rumors of the FBI getting involved and men in plain clothes searching my office surfaced. I had to report to my agency center (a different type of hell) for a week or so til the hype died down. I was concerned with getting fired/going to jail. I had not even gotten attention back in the day and now I was flirting with the idea of a sentence?! WTF.