Groundhog Day and the Elementary School Epic.

Image Credit: Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images

Over the most recent Christmas break I watched the movie Groundhog Day with (a very disheveled) Bill Murray. As most of you know, the main character in the movie gets stuck in a time loop and repeats the same day perhaps thousands of times. (Or at least enough to become a proficient jazz pianist). I literally learned who Sonny and Cher were from this movie. (Random trivia fact: Sonny Bono became a US Congressman in 1994.)

I started to think about what would happen if I got to "Groundhog" some days. I know there would be a few that could do for repeating.

• That day in Ms. Croffer's Spanish class. Quinci's binder was a complete loss.

• That day in the wrestling room.

• That time Christine Rambis used my phone to text the first girl in my contacts and ask her on a date. It was a girl I home taught. That was awkward.  

These were days that, given a chance to repeat, I could own hardcore (I am working on using some Stuart Scott style verbiage here, in honor of his recent passing). It probably would not even take me a 1000 attempts to get it right. I could take the wrestling room right now in a single swipe.

There also are a few days that I would not want to repeat. November 10, 1997 (A Monday) is one of them. I have no idea what happened that day, but why take a chance on the unknown? That could be the day in 4th grade when I had to write my name in the "bad book" because Sharon Miller threw my eraser in the teacher's purse and I tried to retrieve it. I was very rogue in elementary school. I once choke slammed a kid while wearing a Clifford the Big Red Dog sweat suit. That was in kindergarten. But he got my sweat suit dirty. Of course, I do not need to Groundhog that day, since I gave Tyson Bianderos his due on the first try. Sometimes you get it right in a single attempt. If you are familiar with putative discipline systems or the Witch Watch Consortium, I had to pull down to purple bear for the choke slam. 

Another day I do not need to Groundhog also comes from my days in elementary school. A few of you are married to people from this story. It was toward the end of the year of 6th grade and we had a substitute teacher name Ms. Spiker. This is not a code name--I am pretty sure that was her actual name. Anyway, when I was explaining the English assignment to a classmate, Spiker sent me to the office for "talking too much." But I was not stupid. I knew that she would have no idea if I actually went to the office. She was too busy eating my teacher's croutons straight from the box (Not a joke. She also stole a sandwich from the lunchroom and sat with the 2nd graders). Instead, I hid in the 6th grade bathroom until a "good behavior party" started in the gym (The irony).* I had to cover about a two hour gap, which could have proved lethal in those bathrooms. 

However, about 20 minutes into the hideout, one of my classmates came to use the bathroom and saw me. He thought it was pretty cool that I had not actually  gone to the office. Slowly word spread through my whole class that I was in the bathroom hiding. I had about 15 visitors that day. Some of them were girls. They would stand outside the bathroom and whistle, which was the signal that I was to emerge. It was an epic rebellion. I guess that between kindergarten and 6th grade I had changed from violent crime to infractions of a more perjurious nature. At college about 10 years later, I met one of my girl visitors from that day and she still remembered (unprompted) the time I hid in the bathroom. The event had become legendary for her. And it only took me one attempt.

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*This was a Friday and if we had been good during the week, we got to go to a rewards party.