A Virginia substitute middle school teacher was arrested and charged for being drunk in public on August 27, the first day of school. Okay, so I have to be honest with you, when I heard about this I did chuckle. I mean do you remember how awful you were as a middle schooler? I do. I know, I know. It is no laughing matter, a teacher showing up for school drunk. There is no excuse for that.

I mean, I could understand if it was the end of the school year and the teacher was showing up drunk, but really, I mean the school year is just getting started, and the first day no less. At least she was just a substitute, so she wasn’t going to be there teaching your kids drunk every day, just when your child’s teacher is sick. But in her defense, students are always terrible for the substitutes.

There is also the matter of hormones. Middle schoolers are just starting to get hormones and when those hormones appear, they don’t just knock lightly on the door and whisper that they want to come in. Oh no, they come pounding on your front door in the middle of the night yelling and screaming for you to let them in and then they finally come crashing through your front window jacked up on Redbull and Mountain Dew. To say that middle schoolers are a little unpredictable and moody is an understatement. I mean, I’m sure there will be a few times I will need a stiff drink when my boys reach that age. However, I am not a substitute teacher, and I don’t think I’ve ever had enough to drink to be drunk by 9 o’clock in the morning.

I would say that I could understand a teacher having a drink, if it was the end of the school year and if it was after lunch, but not multiple drinks before breakfast on the first day of school.

Joy Larson is a mother of four boys, graduate of The University of Montana, animal lover and writer.

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