Mrs. Dunn and my Nintendo.

In fifth grade, I brought my Nintendo to school. It became something that the students would get to use as a reward for various things, like doing well on a test or acting like a decent human being.

One day, I got in trouble and had to sit in the corner by myself. I sat and watched as two of my classmates played my Nintendo. It reminded me of an earlier experience I had, when I had to watch a former friend play video games while I was forced to sit on a couch in the next room. Aggravated by this memory, and the fact that it was my Nintendo, I decided to take action.

I got out of my desk, walked over to where my classmates were sitting and enjoying themselves, and turned off the Nintendo.

"Hey!" said one of them.

"It's my Nintendo," I told them, "and I don't want you to play it anymore." I unplugged the wires, picked up the main box, and started walking back to my desk in the time-out corner. The only authority figure in the room, a teacher's aide named Mrs. Dunn, saw what was happening and came after me.

"What do you think you're doing?"

"It's my Nintendo, and I'm doing whatever I want with it."

She tried to take it out of my hands, but I resisted. I turned and tried to run, but she grabbed me from behind. I squirmed out of her grasp, but not before she dug her fingernails into my chest, leaving long red scratches that only bled a little, but stung a lot. Shocked that she had assaulted me, I relinquished the video game system.

When the real teacher came back to class, I tried to tell her that Mrs. Dunn had attacked me. I showed her the gouge marks on my chest, and was told that I must have made them myself. When I went home, I told my parents, who also told me I must have mutilated my own body.

In retrospect, I think it's entirely possible that she didn't actually mean to claw me like a crazy homeless cat woman, but there's absolutely no way she didn't know she was responsible. She certainly never admitted to it, though. This was the same woman who knew I hadn't set a knife on fire in the classroom's closet, but didn't do anything to help me when I got blamed for it.

Sometimes I wonder why I have such a problem with authority figures, and then I remember shit like this.