Mrs. Danielle Ball
Dean of Students
Charlotte Country Day School
1440 Carmel Rd.,
Charlotte, NC 28226
Dear Mrs. Ball,
I’m writing to say I’m sorry which you already know because you told me I had to write this letter. But if I’m being really honest, which my mom says I need to do more, I’m not actually sorry.
Mr. Gawle says I risked the lives of myself and others but I disagree. I triple checked the calculations and I’m probably the best science student in the whole grade. Also I wore goggles, which, technically, I borrowed from the chemistry lab without permission, but I was obviously going to return them after the experiment.
I’ve basically always wanted to be a civil engineer when I grow up, except for last year when I wanted to be an aerial photographer, and the year before that when I wanted to be a bereavement coordinator, and the summer I was considering soil conservationism, and obviously excluding when I was really, really young and wanted to be a clinical ethicist.
You could argue it’s my duty to learn everything I can about structural stability now to prepare for my future. You know how important practical study is and Mr. Gawle has almost no field work in his whole curriculum. When you think about it like that, I kind of had to blow it up. So the real transgression here, I believe, is not the destruction of school property, but the denial of learning opportunities.
What’s that Graham Greene quote? “And destruction after all is a form of creation?” I phrased it like a question but that is the quote. Most people only know it from the movie Donnie Darko but I actually read the Destroyers even though Ms. Zelickson didn’t assign it or anything. I haven’t even seen that movie.
It’s not like anybody used the footbridge behind the old gym anyway. Trust me, no one used it.
Maybe you’re thinking this is my way of “lashing out” after the Lydia thing. It definitely, one hundred percent, has nothing to do with that at all. I don’t have time for a girlfriend anyway. Not like she was even my girlfriend. She wasn’t. If you still don’t believe me, just reread my apology letter from April 6th, about using the school intercom to ask her to the seventh grade formal, and I guess also the apology letter from April 8th, about using the school intercom to call Carter Bellina a “butt cheek.”
Do I have regrets? Of course. Getting braces the same year I’m probably going to start kissing girls. Not using a wheeled backpack in lower school because I thought they looked stupid, which they sort of do, but it’s a small price to pay to not have back pain later in life. Trying out for JV tennis just because Davis was doing it but I knew I wasn’t going to make the team which is fine because I don’t even like tennis anyway. But do I regret taking responsibility for my own education and learning a ton about weight bearing supports? No.
Not to be offensive, Mrs. Ball, but sometimes I think, maybe because you’re old, you don’t remember what it’s like to be almost thirteen. Your life is pretty much behind you, not necessarily in a bad way, but what I do right now determines my whole future and I can’t take any chances. There’s too much on my shoulders.
Student council elections are coming up, and since everybody else just gets their friends to vote for them, I have to work extra hard. Which is fine, because once I’m on the student council so many people are going want to be my friend, I won’t need to worry about that in the future. That’s also probably when girls will start being interested in me which will just be one more thing on my plate. My mom’s so tired nowadays, she says that’s just how it goes, so I think, okay, I really can’t waste time while I’m still sort of young. I’ve only got one more year before high school, and then there’s college, then post-bac, unless I go straight for my PhD, but even then I’ll probably take time off to do a Doctors Without Borders kind of thing, but one I founded myself that’s maybe less Africany.
Anyway, I’ve attached my lab report to this letter. I hope you won’t let whatever disciplinary action you’re considering detract from the academic merit of the project. It really took a lot of research to figure out what kind of explosives I’d need and where to place them for peak efficiency. Please read it and then maybe you can help convince Mr. Gawle to give me the ‘A’ we both know I deserve.
Sincerely,
Scott E. Yankowski
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Written by Conner Marx with artwork by Alex Vlahov and voiced by Peter Berube
Inspired by: http://www.breitbart.com/california/2017/03/23/marines-dams-orange-county-wotus-holy-jim/