ANDY'S BOX

There was a kid named Andy in my sixth grade class who had severe ADHD. He couldn't sit still and bothered everybody around him. Our teacher got really fed up and finally came up with a unique punishment/treatment plan.

She cut out the small top and bottom panels of a refrigerator box, so that it was just one 7 ft tall cardboard tube. She'd have Andy sit down in his desk, and then she'd put the box over him, so that he was completely surrounded.

The thinking was that Andy could listen to the lectures through the open top of his pen, but he wouldn't be distracted by seeing the rest of the class. It actually worked (maybe?) for a couple days, and then the insanity started.

At first, we'd just hear minor scuffles coming from the box. Then he started randomly throwing things out of the top of his box, like erasers and pencils and wads of paper. Sometimes he would climb up on top of his desk, so that he could peak out over the top. The teacher would retaliate by banging on his cardboard walls.

He poked a hole through the back of the box with his pencil, so that he had a little spy hole to hold his eye to. Eventually it was big enough for him to stick a wiggling finger through. Hilarious.

But one day he flipped out and what looked like a knife came stabbing through the side of his box. It turned out to be the big pair of scissors from the teacher's desk. She yelled for him to stop, but he kept going until the side panel was perforated enough for him to rip his way out through. He dropped the scissors and tried to take off running down the hall.

Now that the side of his box was hanging open, we could see that he had completely covered the inside of it with horrifying graffiti.