SkirvTV

One day during my senior year,my family and I noticed something wrong with our television - the red had gone out. Apparently, this had happened several days before; we hadn't noticed until we started watching The Simpsons, though (imagine the green+blue version of the Simpsons), so it wasn't that big of a deal. Still, it was enough to get us to go out and buy a new television...

This left us with an important question, though - what should we do with the old television?

I had an idea.

The next day, I showed up for school a bit early, driven instead of bussed. In the back of the car was the television. I called in the assistance of a few friends, and together we dragged it into the student Lounge. Immediately people started figuring out how to get a picture, and some people started going home to grab video game systems... We were happy - after all, our work was done. Uni had just gotten a bit more confusing.

This lasted for almost four hours, before the administration decided to step in.

The principal of the time was Shelley Roberts. She was not particularly popular in the school - since her hiring, she had been attempting to institute many reforms, most of them not appreciated by the student body. So it came to no real surprise when she confiscated the television for her office. Oddly, though, she offered no real excuse for this, beyond "you don't really need it" - something that doesn't truly fit into the Uni mentality, which is good with anything and everything that comes our way.

This did, of course, make me mad. And nobody was used to that yet.

Over our next lunch break, I did the unimaginable - I got more than 50% of the student population to sign a petition asking for the TV back (and the only reason it was that low was that I was the only one wandering the school, and couldn't *find* anyone). Since I had the next two periods free, I proceeded immediately to present it to her - and was awarded by a long talk about how the TV was "disruptive" and "not appropriate".

This didn't exactly affect me. I was still insistent. And so, rather than continue to argue, the television was returned.

Oh, it was just for a time; further fights over the next few weeks revolved around the right to a VCR (we lost that one, because "we might show R-rated movies") and video game systems. Eventually, after I had left, the television again disappeared - but this time I wasn't there to do anything about it. But one day, several years later and after Shelley had retired, I was wandering past the Lounge for some reason and happened to spot that the television had come back... Yay.

I still look back at the whole thing was amusement. It was the first time I really decided to be a pain in the butt, and not only did it work, but it was fun too. This was a great influence on my college years.