Why my students were busted for having swordfights with their letter-openers

And of course, whenever students display inappropriate enthusiasm for acts of juvenile delinquency, it's teachers who get blamed! Contrary to what those seeking to end my teaching career believed, I actually ran a pretty tight shop. Before they got on the tools, I demanded a reasonable facsimile of a technical drawing, an order of operations, and a bill of material. I guess they fooled me from time to time. When I approved the plans for those "pencil-holders," my gut told me all along they looked more like hash pipes. Nevertheless, you want to give students the benefit of the doubt. It's part of building trust. "No, Mr Neumann, it's a pencil holder. Look, you put the pencil in right here..." Sure thing kid. Sure enough, the cops bust a local dealer with a stash of "drug paraphenalia," and want to know how they managaged to manufacture their paraphenalia in my manufacturing class. I thought those were pencil holders. Similar thing happened with the letter openers. There must have been some confusion with the scale on the so-called blueprint. I thought I'd approved letter-openers with a four inch blade. The reprobates made letter-openers with four foot blades. I admit those could easily have been mistaken, by an uninformed observer, for swords. I rarely took a day off, mainly because I loved my job, but one fatefull day I had to skip my morning class for a medical appointment. Sure enough, the little shits impressed the supply teacher by holding a swordfighting exhibition with their letter-openers. The supply teacher panicked and called the office. Man, did I ever have to do some fast talking to get out of that one!