He solved the gap alright. A quick stitch was all it took, but the gap of pants that had opened up in the spot designed to conceal the lower testes area had been closed with a few safety pins. Mr. Fissure went on singing again and again.
"Now, I just have to leave the shirt untucked, and I'll be fine," he sang aloud. "Fine, fine, fine-fine-fine. La-la-la-la!"
"Singing? Again?" Mr. Carter was not amused.
Mr. Carter was not amused because Mr. Carter was putting the finishing touches on an intricate webisode that he had spent his entire weekend crafting. The webisode was designed to introduce his 11th grade Algebra-I-Remediation-and-Support class to the elementary and middle school topic of inequalities. Something that, for some reason, was a new concept to his 11th graders.
"He should start singing about that stupid gap between his pants, is what he should be singing about," Carter huffed.
Mr. Carter was so much the glorious webisode maker that, in his spare time, he helped other teachers create their own webisodes. Super-Cooperative High School ™™®®™™ was really focused on technology.
More recently, his webisodes had gone unnoticed, and when an all-staff meeting was called two hours before the beginning of the school day, Carter felt as though his technology was being put further on the backburner.
"Technology? Science?!" Mr. Admeen shouted. "There will be science. New science! Fresh science! Look! We have beakers!"
And the teachers looked, and saw four large boxes full of different sized beakers, all emblazoned with SCHS logos.
"What about English?" asked Ms. not Mrs. Cisneros.
"English?! There will be English! New English! Look, we have new books!!!" And with that exclamation, Mr. Admeen ripped open another box and tossed each teacher in the room a copy of Huckleberry Finn. The teacher thumbed through the pages while Mr. Admeen looked on, licking his bottom lip and nodding his head in approval.
"What's on the pages? Why is this on every-"
"You like those watermarks?" shouted Mr. Admeen. "Ya, I figured you all would be pretty shocked. The Education Office wasn't too thrilled with the idea of each and every page being watermarked, but I expressed, repeatedly, that it's entirely necessary for every single page to be watermarked so that our school's branding remains fresh and relevant. It's really all in the branding."
"But you can barely see the words. Why do the pages need to be watermarked directly in the center? Isn't that confusing?"
"It might be confusing, for some. But that's a concession I'm willing to make. Not all students can read, this is true. But what's more so truer is that all students need to be able to read the branding. The logos, you know? Brand recognition is paramount to student achievement. We want this school to be recognizable, and to attract the best. The very best. Like professional athletes. Think about it."
The teachers thought about it.
"Do professional athletes wear shoes without branding?"
The teachers thought.
Admeen continued. "Do their jerseys remain a vacant lot? The front of a race car, does it not display the brand's logo?"
The teachers thought about it.
"So why would kids want to go to school without a brand? They wouldn't, that's the truth. Haven't you ever thought about why kids hate going to school?"
"No brands?" asked Katy.
Admeen smiled. "No brands, Katy. No brands. Well, I have given that to them. The students are now part of something bigger, something more focused, and something clean. Look at the detail on those hands."
And the teacher looked at the details on those hands, all 20 of them, forming a circle with fingertips in the middle, all touching. It was near miraculous how the designers of the logo were able to fit 20 hands into a circular space only a few inches in diameter, but it was accomplished, nonetheless.
"Looks like a bunch of fuckin' toothpicks. You can barely see the letters" added Katy.
"Toothpicks?? We have toothpicks. Toothpicks and plates and forks and knives. All covered in our branding!" And with that Admeen began hurling boxes of toothpicks at the staff, laughing hysterically, before calling the teachers together to practice the Morning-Ritual-of-Thanks-and-Cheer™.
Mr. Carter kicked through the cardboard box of toothpicks, sending them scattering across the room.
"It's going to be a long year," he thought.
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