Grand Avenue by Mike Thompson for April 02, 2013

The lockers at my high school were notoriously suspect; if you were smart, you brought your own padlock. I felt sorry for one substitute teacher: Bad enough she got stuck covering for the band director; but the jazz ensemble was first period, the biggest bunch of loonies in the school. As we actually got done rehearsing in time to have time before the next class (we usually scrambled to get our horns put away and get to the next class when the director was rehearsing us), we were in the hallway waiting for the bell when one of the guys suddenly cried out, “Hey, Mrs. Bozo, watch this!” He put his ear to a locker door and started twirling the knob as though he was listening for the tumblers to fall. Slowed down as he supposedly reached a number, spun the knob the other way, went back the first direction, stood up, and jerked open the locker. Mrs. Bozo stood there with her mouth open, apparently shocked that this particular student had just opened a locked locker. We were all ROTFL from the moment he started, because we knew anyone could grab a handle and jerk a door open without knowing any of the combinations.