PennSilverTaco's "Perfect 5-Lug Regular Cab" Build, Aspergers, and General BS MegaThread!

What is going to be?
My mother made me a knitted blanket when I was a kid.

 

A scarf in William & Mary colors!

 

Who is William and Mary?

 

The college my parents both attended and graduated from, and there they met in 1981!

 

I never went to college.
My parents met at a bar.

William and Mary might as well be the neighbors down the road.
Because I don’t know anything about them or college.

 

@ABA180
@ColoradoTJ
@Just_A_Guy
@shakerhood
@Speedytech7
@steelcity2
@Stitchgirl90
@TnShooter

I support the police, but I don't agree with their tactics in dealing with petty offenses at times, and I will freely admit that I have a problem with authority; 99% of the time, I respect authority, and I would say the 1% of the time I don't respect authority would be incidents like what happened in Johnstown earlier this year. Encounters with egotistical security guards at places like shopping malls also come to mind...

This has been going on for years though, like since middle school. I have always been a good student; I got decent grades, and rarely got in trouble. This incident from like 2004, when I would have been in high school (either 9th or 10th grade), came to mind recently.

After 5th grade, I never took the bus to and from school. My parents, usually my mom, drove me to school in the morning and picked me up in the afternoon. I attended my first two years of middle school in Oak Harbor, Washington when my dad was stationed at NAS Whidbey Island (2000-2002); I attended my final year of middle school and my first two years of high school in Fairfax County, Virginia (2002-2005).

My mom saw to it that I was never late to school, and the incident about which I am going to tell you took place in either 9th or 10th grade (about 2004, maybe 2005); I think I may have told this story before, but here it is again...

I forget why I was I was late, but I was a good 10 or 20 minutes late. The way I remember it, my mom had called ahead and explained the situation, but this was about twenty years ago so there's no way in hell I'm going to remember why I was late. It was definitely after May 2004, because that was when my parents bought the 2004 Honda Odyssey, and my mom dropped me off in the Odyssey. This would make it sometime in 10th grade...

So, my mom dropped me off in the designated student drop-off area, and I entered through the front entrance. As soon I walked into the school, I was intercepted by security and herded into the cafeteria with a bunch of other kids. I protested, saying that I was never late, that it was my mom's fault (again, I forget what happened, but I have a feeling it was something involving my mom; I wasn't old enough to have a driver's license, so she was my ride), and I needed to get to class. Security at Centreville High School was a bunch of assholes, and they weren't having any of it.

One of the security guys was this ex-NFL player named Warren (last name; I forget his first name) who was actually not an asshole, but he was still big and intimidating. So, they herded all of the tardy kids into the cafeteria and made them all sit down; I have no idea if this was a regular occurrence or if they just implemented this policy, because that was my first and last time being that late for school. I was utterly confused as to what was going on, and I started asking around. The overwhelming majority of students I talked to were just as confused as me, but it quickly became apparent what was going on...

This was something they did every morning. All tardy students were forced to sign a log, and if their name showed up a certain number of times (I'm guessing three in a row or three in a month), they were disciplined. I saw this 12th grader named Andy, who had Down Syndrome, among the group. This filled me with a rage that burned with the intensity of a thousand suns. I knew Andy, and I knew he was a good kid who happened to have special needs. He lived in the neighborhood across from the school if I remember correctly, and he usually walked to school. For whatever reason, he was really late that morning, and I don't think it was his fault. I can remember turning to a girl who'd been rounded up, pointing towards Andy as he signed the tardy log, and telling her that Andy had special needs. She agreed with me and said that the situation was unfair.

I filled out the tardy log, and finally made it to class a good 30 or 40 minutes late! My teacher had been made aware of my situation when my mom called the school, so I didn't get in any trouble, but apparently nobody bothered to tell security that I was coming in late. By pulling that roundup bullshit, they made me late by double the amount of time I would have been late if they'd just let me go, when I basically had permission to be late in the first place!

 

What jerks

 

I can't remember what we had to do if we were late.
I think you signed in in the office.
There was thing called "Time for Time" or something like that.
It was scaled, eventually after so many times being late, or absent, you had to stay after school to make up the time.

I only had to do that two times.
Once after I was suspended for 3 days.
And another time for being absent too many times.

I never was late much. I either made it on time, or said the hell with it and stayed home.

 

@ColoradoTJ
@Just_A_Guy
@shakerhood
@TnShooter

Don't even get me started on the security at that school; Centreville High School was in a very affluent area in one of the best school districts in the country. However, Fairfax County Public Schools is a HUGE district, and a lot of the students at CVHS came from the low-income neighborhoods and/or had rough upbringings. As such, the security people tended to treat everyone like a potential threat; I never felt unsafe at that school, and I only ever saw two physical fights break out in two years there. I was bullied, but I was never physically assaulted.

That said, in the post-Colombine and post-9/11 landscape, those guys had to be prepared for everything. What it led to was an autistic teenager, who wanted to do his own thing and be left alone, being treated like a habitual troublemaker by security staff who would have been more at home in a reform school...

I had alternated between a portable CD player and a Sony mini disc player in 2003-2004, and I finally got an iPod Shuffle for my 16th birthday in 2005; I forget what I was listening to at the time of this incident, but I was listening to music on big DJ-style Aiwa headphones. I will never remember what I was listening to, but I had the music up really loud as I was walking from the cafeteria to study hall after lunch. Somebody came up behind me and yanked the headphones right off my head; I thought it was another student being an asshole, and I was about to kick their ass. I'd been getting bullied a lot and I was done; I spun around, ready to clobber whoever it was, and my eyes went wide when I saw it was this tall Kojack-looking bald guy who worked security.

My best guess is that he thought I knew he was trying to get my attention, and I was purposely ignoring him, when in reality I just had the music up too loud and didn't notice him. I forget what he said, but he sternly admonished me for breaking the "no headphones and/or music in the hallway" rule before giving my headphones back.

My best description of myself back then (and even now sometimes) was an embittered hothead, but even I knew not to get on the bad side of some of the security guys. If it was another student, I probably would have put him on his ass right then and there, but I just apologized half-sarcastically and continued to class.

 

"Zero Tolerance" is one of the worst things that's ever happened to public schools; I never had to stay after school to make up time, but I got detention in 11th and 12th grade for being late a few times...

 

Here's one that happened in 11th grade, in late 2005, after we'd moved back to PA; I was going to Central Bucks High School West in Doylestown. As stated above, I got an iPod Shuffle for my 16th birthday earlier that year; I'm talking one of the original screenless units that looked more like a thumb drive than a media player, and it came with a lanyard that allowed it to be hung around the neck...

I routinely wore my iPod around my neck so I wouldn't lose it, and I did this for the first few months of 11th grade. Nobody gave a shit, or so I thought. First period for me was math class, and my teacher was 50-something woman named Ms. Kidd who drove a Chrysler Sebring convertible. I came into class wearing my iPod around my neck, like I always did; I had already sat down at my desk, and I don't how far into class this took place, but it must have been fairly early on.

Ms. Kidd took issue with my iPod being around my neck and rather rudely told me to put it away; I say again that the iPod was hanging harmlessly around my neck and I was NOT listening to music. I didn't even have headphones plugged into it.

Being the autistic "I'm not doing anything wrong" hair splitter that I've always been, I refused to put it away, my reasoning being that I always hung it around my neck and didn't want to lose it because it was very expensive. I believe I tried to reason with her and stick it under my shirt, but I refused to take it off because it was a $150 device and not some toy; Ms. Kidd wasn't having it.

I still believe that I was justified to this day, more than 18 years later.

I got into a huge argument with Ms. Kidd and got kicked out of class. No other teacher gave a shit that I wore my iPod around my neck and if I remember correctly, I just wore it under my shirt in Ms. Kidd's class like I originally suggested, and she seemingly never noticed it! Imagine that!

Call me a conspiracy theorist, but I believe to this day that some people go out of their way to stir up shit!

 

The security in my school was cool. They didn't bother anyone.
Pretty awesome guys actually.

As for the low income projects students, we had them too.
And believe it or not, this long haired white boy got along with them just fine.
I even became pretty good friends with some of them.

 

I got caught with a pager a few times.
They never did anything but tell me not to bring it back again.

I started driving and got a job when I was 15.
There were time in high school where I didn't see my parents for a couple days.
They were up an gone by 6:30am, and in bed before I got home from work.
I worked at a restaurant for 3 years in high school.

 

They couldn't have put a bigger rear window in it if they tried, could they?

 

@ColoradoTJ
@shakerhood

There was this big black dude named Ryan who I was in several classes with in 9th and 10th grade. He looked like he would tear you limb from limb, but he was very nice (he was nice to me, anyway). We were in the same grade and we were roughly the same age. To give you an idea of how big he was, he was taller than me and in 9th grade weighed over 200 pounds. Ryan, as far as I know, did not have a criminal record. I knew of several kids (black, white, and Asian) who at 15-16 years of age already had criminal records. When I was in 8th grade, there was this really nice Korean guy who at only 13 or 14 years old was on probation. It was no secret that he was on probation, and I asked him politely what he'd done. He told me that he'd stolen a bicycle; I have no idea if it was from a store or from somebody's house, but he told me that he stole a bike.

There was a white guy I was in a few high school classes with who, by his own admission, got expelled from a neighboring school district for bashing a fellow student in the head with a football helmet; I initially saw him as a sociopathic bully, but then I got to know him and we were on fairly good terms before the end of 10th grade. I remember that his mom drove a 1995 Nissan Pathfinder (this was 2004-2005), and I really believe that he was mostly good person who just had anger issues, and I hope he found his way in life.

Anyway, back to Ryan, the large friendly black dude; Ryan, I'm pretty sure as stated above, did not have a criminal record. He just associated with some people who weren't good people. One day, he just wasn't in class in history class. Everybody, myself included, liked Ryan. Rumors started to circulate about what had happened, and our history teacher decided to explain the truth about what had happened...

 

I've never used my rear window. I'd be cool with paying less for a fixed window.