For some reason I find myself thinking back to the time when I realized that I probably wasn’t a normal kid. This wasn’t a, “I am bound to do something great in my life,” kind of realization (don’t worry, I have those on a daily basis) but this was more like a, “Maybe I’m one of those special kids” realization.

I was a third grader. At this point in my life I was spending an average of 20.4 minutes per day in the bathroom because I started to make the realization that if you were the bathroom you didn’t have to be in class. This discovery was motivated by my semi-rational hatred of my 3^rd grade teacher Mrs. Erickson. She always forced me to write in cursive and insisted that it was a great opportunity to do so. So in order to avoid writing in cursive, I would kick it in the boy’s bathroom.

As a side note, it should also be known that at this point in my life I was slightly addicted to minor acts of mischief. I think it started when I saw an episode of The Wonder Years when Kevin and Paul go with a bunch of kids to TP someone’s house. After that I started to plan out how I would accomplish my own act of deviancy.

One day in particular I remember sitting on the toilet, examining the toilet paper dispenser. The next time you go into a public restroom look at one of these things. What you will find surprises me to this day. 93% of public restrooms have toilet paper dispensers that have locks on them. I guess at some point in human history there was a shortage of TP and people started stealing it from restrooms, manufacturers made sure that every dispenser was equipped for such attacks.

Anyways, while I was sitting on said toilet looking at this toilet paper dispenser I realized that the lock system of this dispenser could be picked quite easily. I unlocked it and then locked it a few times just make sure that it wasn’t a fluke and that I was becoming a lock picking genius. After confirming my ability to unlock the dispenser I started to think about how I could use this newfound power to my benefit. What came next was most evil genius plan ever concocted by a 3^rd grader.

The plan was as follows. Every day I would sneak off to the bathroom and use my pro lock picking skills to steal a roll of toilet paper. I would only steal one roll at a time because if I took all four then the janitors would be overly suspicious. I would take the roll of toilet paper home with me and I would do this until I had 200 rolls because at that point I would have enough paper to pull off a serious act of mischief. Since most, if not all, of my hatred was directed towards my teacher Mrs. Erickson and school in general, I would unleash the toilet paper furry on the school itself. And for all of you keeping score at home, yes, this would mean I would be covering the school in their own toilet paper! Pure evil genius, right? Well, I thought so.

After making this realization I rushed back to class to tell my two friends, Casey and Tyler, about my plan. Instead of lauding me with endless praise, they questioned the legitimacy of my plan on every level. They found it immoral to be stealing from the school and assured me that I would go straight to jail if I was caught. In short, they thought it was the dumbest idea of all time.

I couldn’t stand to hear my idea get shot down so I scurried off to the corner of the room so I could rethink my plan. It was then that I realized that maybe I wasn’t like most other kids. I mean, here I was, thinking of plans to vandalize the school where most everyone else was wondering if they were going to play tetherball of four square during recess.

 In the end, I concluded that I was highly advanced in comparison to my classmates. Or maybe I was just one crazy little kid. Probably a little of both.

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