Jelly Belly Ache

When I was 5, I know at times I was a pain in the ass. I didn't always keep my room clean, I always picked on my big sister and didn't always listen to Mom and Dad. Usually a spanking or a grounding was enough to get me back in line.

My sister was babysitting the 5-year-old neighbor boy and discovered he had a rare speech impediment where he turned normal words into vulgarity. Ashtray became "asstray" and fire truck was "firefuck." Of course, my sister made him repeat the words 5,000 times during her six-hour shift, then collected $12 from the unsuspecting parents when they got home. The problem was, my sister had turned the kid into a parrot with a two-word vocabulary. The kid had to suck on a bar of soap for a month or so to help him clean up his act.

But that was then with kid "crime and punishment." What follows is the now (what appears in italics is from a recent Associated Press story):

5-Year-Old Cuffed and Arrested in Florida
ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. (March 18) - A 5-year-old girl was arrested, cuffed and put in back of a police cruiser after an outburst at school where she threw books and boxes, kicked a teacher in the shins, smashed a candy dish, hit an assistant principal in the stomach and drew on the walls.

Wow, that's quite a tantrum. Some people would say the hitting and kicking really crossed the line, but imagine how upset this little girl must have been to break a candy dish! In a 5-year-old's mind, where is the candy gonna' go if you break the candy dish? That's like slicing a hole in your trick-or-treat bag. The little spitfire must have been pushed over the edge like Drew Barrymore in Firestarter.

The students were counting jelly beans as part of a math exercise at Fairmount Park Elementary School when the little girl began acting silly. That's when her teacher took away her jelly beans, outraging the child.



It's easy to see why this escalated so quickly. When I was in school, the teachers were smart enough to avoid using candy in math exercises. They used apples or oranges instead. Spreading candy out in front of a 5-year-old is akin to spreading out a smorgasbord of Viagra, Cialis and Levitra at a nursing home and then taking them all away between bingo and bedtime. It just spells trouble. And what does it mean when a 5-year-old girl acts "silly?" Did she fall asleep on the comic pages and wake up with "Rex Morgan, M.D." and "Mary Worth" plastered to the side of her face? No wait... that'd be silly putty. My guess is she was so hopped up on jelly beans, she started telling knock-knock jokes non-stop. Or maybe just giggling or running or hopping around due to the excess sugar. The problem with using the word "silly" is that it leaves a lot open to the imagination. I guess you could say seeing a naked hobo with a soup can over his genitals singing Mule Train could even qualify as "silly." Obviously you should never be a jelly bean "indian-giver" when it comes to 5-year-olds. You'd figure a math teacher would know that only adds up to trouble.

Minutes later, the 40-pound girl was in the back of a police cruiser, under arrest for battery. Her hands were bound with plastic ties, her ankles in handcuffs.

OK, so she threw some books and broke a candy dish. She was kicking shins. They should be happy that she wasn't the daughter of a Rockette or she would have kicked someone in the "gumballs." But this is a 40-pound 5-year-old girl they had hogtied in the back of the squad car, not a rabid wolverine. I've had drinks in my car's cup-holder that weighed more than 40 pounds (Super Duper Big Gulp at 7-Eleven which comes in a collector's wastebasket). Maybe a better solution would have been to send in Steve Irwin, the Crocodile Hunter, to swat at the girl with a large stick for a while and assess the wild animal she had apparently become. "These 5-year-old girls are unpredictable. One minute they're having tea parties with their dollies and teddy bears, but take away their jelly beans, and they become more dangerous than spitting cobras," he'd say. "Let's see if I can get her attention with a few pokes with this stick. Ooo, now she's really agitated! But she's a gorgeous creature."

"I don't want to go to jail," she said moments after her arrest Monday.
No charges were filed and the girl went home with her mother. While police say their actions were proper, school officials were not pleased with the outcome."We never want to have 5-year-old children arrested," said Michael Bessette, the district's Area III superintendent. The district's campus police should have been called to help and not local police, he said. Bessette said campus police routinely deal with children and are trained to calm them in such situations.

What charges can you file against a 5-year-old and make them stick - like a wad of Juicy Fruit in your hair - unless making faces is now a felony? The kid definitely has anger issues, but couldn't the police have sent in a negotiator dressed up as Barney to defuse the situation before cuffing and stuffing this kid?

Under the district's code of student conduct, students are to be suspended for 10 days and recommended for expulsion for unprovoked attacks, even if they don't result in serious injury. But district spokesman Ron Stone said that rule wouldn't apply to kindergartners.
"She's been appropriately disciplined under the circumstances," he said.
The girl's mother, Inda Akins, said she is consulting an attorney.
"She's never going back to that school," Akins said. "They set my baby up."

Does every incident involve a conspiracy theory now? When I was 5, there were only a handful of conspiracy theories like JFK, UFOs and Jimmy Hoffa. All the other shit we had figured out. It also seems like behind every weird kid story, there's always an idiot parent. If I was the teacher I would have told the mother, who clearly has crop circles in her backyard, "Yes, that's exactly right, Mrs. Akins. We set that little bitch up with the jelly beans. I knew those Jelly Bellies would make her more huffy than a bike. Why? I was sick of reading "The Cat In The Hat" every day to her during story time. During finger painting, she used her toes and that was the last fucking straw! I conspired with the guy down at the candy store on how to take her out of my classroom once and for all. I suggested Rolos to roll her ass out the door, but the candy store guy assured me that after giving her jelly beans and taking them away, she'd turn into a miniature Tonya Harding."



It's unclear if the 5-year-old asked to re-start her tantrum because her shoelace was untied, but chances are the real teacher ended up writhing on the classroom floor clutching her shins and screaming through her Seabiscuit teeth, "Why?!? Why?!?"



Twelve years from now that kid will probably be chucking hubcaps at her prom date.