Here is an Old Story

My mind is going a little bit, I can't remember if I posted this story or not. If I did, I apologize for retreading old stories twice. But I looked through the archieves and did not see it. So here goes:

My junior year of high school I had Mr. Serafin as a study hall teacher. My good friend, Paul “Krum” Krumrich was also in the class and sat across from me. Mr. Serafin would always bring in the previous days newspaper. One day, upon entering class Paul and I both ran to Mr. Serafin’s desk to grab the sports section. In the process of us both grabbing at the paper we happened to crumple it a little bit. Mr. Serafin took exception to this and reprimanded us, revoking our rights to read his day old paper for the rest of the week. I didn’t think it was that big of a deal because we didn’t crumple it that bad, plus it was old news. However it was his paper and we should be respectful of other people’s property. The following Monday I brought in my paper from home from Friday. And I had Paul go up to Mr. Serafin’s desk and grab his paper. Paul came back to his desk and put that paper under his desk. Mind you study hall was meant for studying and we were only allowed to talk for the last ten minutes of the class. About 5 minutes after class starts, I pull out my paper, Paul and I are holding the paper between the two of us, and slowly we continue to argue over the paper and we are even crumpling it a bit as well. During this time we are both checking out of the corner of your eyes to see what Mr. Serafin would do. But he was busy tutoring another student at his desk. Obviously we were not getting the reaction out of him that we wanted, so in a loud voice I said, “The paper is mine!” and I ripped the paper right down the middle. The sudden tear of the paper brought the room to silence and all heads in the classroom looked at Paul and I, then turned over to Mr. Serafin. Mr. Serafin slowly looked up from his desk and said “I don’t believe it.” There was a short pause, and then he repeated louder, “I don’t believe it!” He put his hands down on his desk and lifted himself up, then stomped over between Paul and me. I don’t recall his exact words be I know that he was looking for an explanation for our actions. I continued on with the joke saying “Well I wanted the paper and went to grab the sports section and then Paul grabbed it back.” Mr. Serafin turned to Paul and glared at him waiting for his explanation. Paul folded under the pressure, and slowly produced Mr. Serafin’s undamaged paper from under his desk and said, “But it wasn’t your paper.” Mr. Serafin grabbed the paper out of Paul’s hand and said “You two can’t read the paper for the rest of the year!” and then stomped back to his desk and sat down, still fuming over this incident. The rest of the class went back to their own work while Paul and I sort of gave each other the “well that didn’t work out so great look”. About 5 minutes later after the whole situation had set in, Mr. Serafin began laughing at his desk and said “Well you guys really got me on that one.”