Fight, fight, fight

Janet came to school looking for a fight. First thing in the morning, she was sitting at the sation next to the one where I was setting up. As I bent over to get the flat-iron out of my kit, I hear (in a VERY nasty tone) "Miss Cynthia, that is right in my face!" This was said with so much disgust and contempt that my first thought was that somehow Janet had gotten hairspray sprayed in her face. I turned around really having no idea what she was talking about, and asked: "What? What's in your face?"

"Your ass!" she replied with distain.

Attempting to deflect this with humor I replied: "Oh Miss Janet I am SO sorry. My ass is just SO BIG it gets in the way. It's so big I can't keep track of it. Like when you're eight months pregnant and you don't know how big your belly is and you keep bumping into things. That's my ass." I then put all my stuff back in my bag and moved to another station far away from crazy Janet. (The students within earshot of all this thought I was hilarious, especially since initially there was so much tension.)

After lunch, suddenly a fight broke out. Janet and Simiko. It was sudden, vicious and loud. Scary. Janet was screaming and going at Simiko (who was also screaming). Darina who was standing about two feet in front of me, went towards Janet to put a hand on her arm and calm her down. But she'd been doing a cut and had her comb and shears in her hand. Super Scary. As this was happening some students were moving in closer, teachers were running in. I'm wondering "is any one calling the cops?" (and since we had about seven clients at the time "we are NEVER going to get any more clients.") But as soon as I saw those shears I ducked down the hallway and around the corner to the Spa Room. So I missed most of it. Both Simko and Janet got expelled. I had just completed Simko's resume with her that morning. She only had about 200 hours more to go; was going to graduate at the end of June. Everyone is saying it was Simiko's fault. I'm not so sure.

Only once have I ever heard of a violent fight in advertising. A rumor of two secretaries in the traffic department at Y&R. The key is when you see a weapon, get the hell out of there. One evening I was coming down the escalators in the Met Life building into Grand Central and saw a man running at full speed across the concourse. Behind him were three cops with GUNS DRAWN. Behind them was a crowd running to see the action. When I got to the bottom of the escalator, I turned around, went back up and returned to my office for an hour or so.

Yesterday one of the girls told me that "there's a fight every Friday. That's why I don't come on Fridays." She may be right. The Friday before all this happened there was another bad fight up the hill resulting in the Police being called and an expulsion.

Stay tuned and find out what will happen tomorrow. It could be me and that new teacher, Mr. James....