How to Tell if Your Teacher is Hung Over

By Merton Sussex, Hair of the Doggy-Style

Hey, kids! It's that time of year again! Time for lots more classes, lots more books, and lots more teachers' dirty looks. In other words, it's time to utter the three most dreaded words in the English language, provided you're 18 or under:

"Back to School."

Of course, I'm speaking in a pragmatic, literal sense. Thanks to seasonal retail creep (which has just gotten worse since most stores are struggling to survive a recession economy), you've been hearing it's time for "Back to School" since before the end of Spring Break. But now, it's mid-August, and shit has gotten decidedly real. Point is, if you don't have your ruler, pencil, notebook and eraser supply chain squared away by NOW, it's too fucking late. So you'd best hustle your ass to the Dollar Store before the only folders left are the ones proudly emblazoned with unlicensed, watered-down, half-assed Harry Potter knockoffs. Because it's going to be a mighty hungry year when all your lunch money is routinely stolen due to your new status as your school's resident pariah.


However, all the pristine, socially-acceptable Hannah Jonas' High School McMusical Princess pencil boxes in the known universe can't prepare you for EVERY eventuality you'll face in the coming scholastic term. Especially being as the perfect-storm cocktail of shit economic conditions, a shortage of qualified people, a lower bar on certificate criteria and the fact that nobody else under the sun is currently hiring means that you're probably going to be receiving your precious education from a "Teacher" whose last "job" was bartending (i.e., pouring liquor down the throats of people who were still lucid enough to order drinks, but had long since kissed off the motor skills necessary to actually consume them). That is, when they weren't busy dumping enough booze to put a midget into a coma down their OWN gullet. And chances are, growing up, getting responsible and being placed in charge of shaping young minds is something that only happened once they realized their student loan deferments had run out, so it's not exactly as though the transition from party animal to scholastic champ will be what they refer to as "seamless."

Which brings us to the overall thrust of today's little lesson. It's one you won't learn from a book, but it's no less crucial than the ones you will. Namely, our coursework for today is - "How to Tell if Your Teacher is Hung Over." So, following are a handful of ways you might be able to reliably determine that the shepherd of your future may actually have fewer remaining brain cells than any of his or her students:


When you walk in, he's handing the ladder-toting Janitor a limp twenty, and all of the fluorescent tubes above his desk are suspiciously missing.

Her eyelids are permanently affixed at half-mast, and she's got so much concealer daubed under her eyes themselves that it looks like she painted on some Wite-Out™ from her desk drawer.

The bottle of Excedrin Migraine she keeps next to the vase with the plastic flowers in it was full on Friday, now the only thing left inside is the little "Do Not Eat" thingy.

He's wearing Ray-Bans, the shades are pulled, and your room faces the south side of the building.

Filmstrip!

She creams her coffee with Milk of Magnesia.


He's wearing the same clothes he left in on Friday.

Your Geography lesson involves helping her find her car keys.

Your oral exam is canceled in favor of "I don't care what you do...Just please do it quietly."

He hands out an "A for the day" to the kid who gives him a bite of his Egg McMuffin.

She winces and grimaces visibly whenever the chalk squeaks.

He loses his place in the middle of a lecture, forgets where he is for a minute, then absent-mindedly tries to two-finger smoke his pen.

A crudely-drawn cheek-penis is ejaculating Sharpie sperm in the general direction of his mouth under the protective auspice of the block-printed "FUCKIN DOOCHEBAG [sic]" adorning his forehead.


She stops abruptly, and leaves the room very, very quickly in the middle of discussing the party chapter of "The Great Gatsby."

You realize that the growing sweat stains on his shirt have a decidedly brownish tinge right around the same time you notice the room is starting to take on the faint-but-distinctive bouquet of spoiled produce.

She says "Welcome to Study Hall" when it's supposed to be History class, and when you protest, she shrugs her shoulders, puts her head down on her desk, and doesn't move until the bell rings.

He keeps using the Bunsen burners to heat a rapidly-emptying coffee pot.

Nobody has the heart to tell her that she's trailing around a used condom stuck to the bottom of her shoe.


The syllabus says your Health class is supposed to be working on infectious diseases, but for some reason, the line of discussion segues half-a-dozen times into the dangers of excessive intoxicant ingestion.

In Home Ec class, she announces that you're having an impromptu pancake-making contest, and appoints herself the judge.

The Student Teacher takes over for the hour, which your teacher then spends lying under his desk, sobbing softly.

The closer it gets to lunch, the more wet, deep, fragrant belches seem to interrupt the lecture.

The vocabulary word for the day is "borborygmus."

Every time you ask a question, he sighs, squints his eyes shut, pinches the bridge of his nose and says, "Just...just gimme a minute, okay?"


She's still wearing a plastic hospital bracelet, but she doesn't seem injured.

His shoes have what looks like dried oatmeal residue in the seams and the sole tread.

It takes her an hour to get her muffin down, and she chews every bite for at least five minutes.

He keeps taking the cap off a bottle of water, then sitting there for a second before sighing, and replacing the cap.

And the #1 way to tell if your teacher is hung over...

He makes this guy look good.

So there you have it. And remember, kids...if your teacher IS hung over? The best thing you can do for him or her is to ensure the levels of ambient noise and light remain consistently toward the top of the range of what is normally acceptable, with the odd spike into the realm of what usually gets you into trouble. After all...not only will Headache McNausea not be going to any heroic measures to get the Principal involved, but in creating an inhospitable environment for "Teech," you'll be imparting a lesson equal to (if not greater than) the ones being conveyed unto you.

Who says education has to be a one-way street?