- I have a friend named Megan
she's an elementary school teacher.
And I was out with her one night
and she was drinking like a monster.
(audience laughing)
And I said to her,
"Don't you have to do a shift at school tomorrow?"
And she went, "Ah, I'll just show a video."
And I was like, that's why teachers show videos?
(audience laughing)
(upbeat theme music)
- I barely got outta high school.
I wasn't gonna start that shit all over again.
(audience laughing)
I barely got out man, my teacher kept me back.
I said, "What you keeping me back for?
I don't wanna see you again
and you don't wanna see me again.
Let me go see what I can do.
(audience laughing)
Let me be all I could be."
I used to get on teachers' nerves, they used to hate me.
They used to get mad, they used to, they say,
"Listen Chris, if you act up again
I'm gonna call your mama."
I said, "If you gonna call my mama
you gonna have to pay the phone bill
'cause the phone been cut off for two weeks."
(audience laughing)
(audience laughing continues)
She'd be pissed off, "Get outta my room, you make me sick.
Go to the principal office."
I go to the principal office, I didn't care
'cause I was in the principal's office so much
I was cool with the principal, we were tight.
(audience laughing)
He'd be like, "What'd you do this time?
Get in here, get in here, get in here.
Close the door, close door. Oh, sit down.
What'd you do this time? What you do?"
(audience laughing)
"Call my mama, pay the phone bill."
"Are you crazy Chris?"
(audience laughing)
You a fool, Chris, (audience laughing)
you a fool (audience laughing)
You gonna make me suspend your ass.
I'm just playing, I'm just playing you making suspend you."
(audience laughing)
- And because I'm from North Carolina
we used to play with tires, yeah.
I'm talking about tires that fell off of a Mack truck
rolled into the elementary school parking lot.
Our administrators are like,
"Well we don't got much of a budget,
so we'll figure out something to do with these old things."
These were large tires, you stand 'em up, they're this tall,
like 75 pounds, hollow in the middle.
We had a hill in the back of our elementary school
so it was our teachers who had to push these tires
up that hill, just ooh, so angry, just pushing 'em up there.
They were like, "I have a master's in education."
(audience laughing)
(Fortune imitating heaving breathing)
We ran up there, we took our little five year old bodies
and we would, mm, mm, (audience laughing)
we got into the middle of these tires.
Other friend would take their five year old body
get in the other one.
Then it was our teachers who would get
behind each tire and get momentum.
(audience laughing)
All right, you little fuckers,
(audience laughing)
get ready for the ride of your life.
(audience laughing)
And then they push us down a hill
we got speeds of like 20 miles an hour
40 miles an hour, 60 miles an hour.
There's no handle, you're just like,
(Fortune screaming). (audience laughing)
We crashed into a brick wall, flew out of the tire, vomited.
(audience laughing)
Your teacher came down the hill,
put her cigarette out on your forehead.
(audience laughing)
She'd be like, "Recess is dismissed
in fact, school's dismissed.
I gotta go meet my man friend who I connected
with via the newspaper."
(audience laughing)
And that was recess in the 80s.
(audience applauding and cheering)
- I was once in assembly listening
to a guy talk about smoking crack.
My social studies teacher yelled at me, he goes,
"Sit up straight. Show some respect."
I was like, "He's smoking cocaine."
(audience laughing)
Sit up straight?
He's standing on a 45 degree angle
(audience laughing)
or as junkies call it, first position.
(audience laughing)
I always got yelled at at assembly.
That's right, there was always like assembly
and then there was like that second assembly
to yell at you for how you behaved at the first assembly.
They'll be like, "Get in here, sit down, sit down, sit down.
I wanna talk about what happened yesterday."
(audience laughing)
You're like eight years old,
you're like, "What's Yesterday?"
(audience laughing)
"We invite a woman here with homemade puppets
to teach you about bullying through skits.
And you laugh at this woman?
(audience laughing)
We noticed you had all been bullying each other
and making fun of everything constantly.
So we invite a woman with straight gray hair
in a denim dress, with a wrist cast and homemade puppets
that all have the same voice to teach you about bullying
through skits and ya, 'Ha ha ha,' laugh it up.
(audience laughing)
What was so funny about that woman?
I wanna know what was so funny about when she
couldn't fit the box of puppets back into the trunk
of her Dodge Neon, what was so hilarious
that you all ran to the windows?
Well, (audience laughing)
you all missed a valuable lesson
on the danger of cliques."
"What's a clique?"
"It's when a group of people hang out together."
"Oh, you mean like having friends?"
"No, because these people make fun of other people."
"Oh, you mean like having friends?"
(audience laughing)
- And my music and art teachers were more strict
than my math teacher.
(audience laughing)
My art teacher was a psychopath.
(audience laughing)
So for two years he asked us to draw one tree
just for two years, one tree, I couldn't take it.
(audience laughing)
I broke one day and I drew two trees (indistinct).
(audience laughing)
♪ Imagination (indistinct) ♪ (audience laughing)
And he saw it and he banged my head into those trees.
(audience laughing)
Til the imprint came off the trees.
(audience laughing)
He taught me a lesson for using my head.
So now whenever I use my imagination, it hurts a little bit.
(audience laughing)
- I took an acting class when I was 10, in New Hampshire.
(audience laughing)
This goes together.
(audience laughing)
And first of all, this acting teacher was mean.
I remember he said like, oh, one assignment
was bring in your favorite song and like act out to it.
And then I brought in my favorite song, which is like,
♪ Just a city boy, born and raised in ♪
"Don't Stop Believing."
(audience laughing)
And like, I thought that acting was mouthing it.
So I was like
(audience laughing)
And he went bananas on me.
And you know, I wish at 10, I had the wherewithal
to be like, you know what?
He's probably going through something.
(audience laughing)
That's his. (audience laughing)
No, I didn't know to do that when I was 10,
I just assumed I was a piece of shit.
- I remember going from being the teacher's pet
to being the teacher's nemesis in one lesson.
And until I was diagnosed
I never understood what had happened.
Now the lesson was on prepositions.
So strap yourselves in for this story.
Now, (audience laughing)
I do like my teacher, she's a good teacher
I like the way she explained things.
But we lost each other this way.
This is how she began the lesson.
She said, "Imagine a box." And I could do that.
I was gifted to a point, visual thinker, good box
solid three dimensional, nothing fancy, but there.
And then she said, "A preposition is a word
that explains your relationship to the box."
And that's when my thinking just fell apart
because I thought I'm related to a box?
(audience laughing)
Then she said, "Now you can be behind the box.
Does anybody know what the preposition is there?"
No, they didn't, but I had a question.
(audience laughing)
I said, "Am I made of box?"
(audience laughing)
Now let me bring you into my thinking there.
I thought if I was related to a box, we must share DNA.
And it made more sense in my head,
that I would be made of box,
than the box would be made of me.
But my teacher was not privy to that gifted
train of thought, circling my head there.
So she was a bit thrown and she said,
"No, Hannah, you're not made of box.
I'm surprised you had to ask that."
(audience laughing)
"It's, okay, you can be in front of the box then.
Does anybody know what the preposition is there?"
No, they didn't. But I had another question.
(audience laughing)
I said, "Does the box have a name?"
I thought if I had a name I could work out
how we were related, maybe we were cousins.
And she said, "No, it's a box, boxes don't have names,
Hannah, what box do you know have names?"
And I started listing breakfast cereals.
(audience laughing)
She's like, "All right, okay, you can be beside the box.
Does anybody know what the preposition is there?"
No, they didn't. But I had another question.
Now, I don't remember my thinking behind this question
but I remember asking it because when I did
everybody laughed and I had no idea why.
But I remembered really liking the feeling.
Uh-oh. (audience laughing)
This was the question.
I said, "Am I allowed to eat the box?"
(audience laughing)
Of course, yes, everybody is laughing
except me and the teacher, looking back,
I don't know why the fuck she wasn't laughing.
(audience laughing)
As far as jokes go, that's a classic.
A baby died just asked if she was allowed to eat the box.
(audience laughing)
But she didn't think it was funny, she's like,
"Okay, all right, okay, sh, sh, sh, sh, calm down.
Okay, we might be on the wrong track.
How about we imagine something else
in relation to the box then?
Okay, how about a penguin?
(audience laughing)
Now the penguin can be inside the box.
Does anybody know what the preposition is there?"
No, they didn't.
But I had some fucking questions about the penguin.
(audience laughing)
I said, "What is the penguin made of?"
(audience laughing)
And that was the question that broke my teacher.
You know, you've broken a teacher
when a teacher who never swears, swears bad.
(audience laughing) So I went,
"What's the penguin made of?" And she's like,
"Penguin, I mean, it's made of fucking penguin."
(audience laughing)
- It kinda sound pandering, but I believe that the pandemic
has been hardest on mothers.
Definitely hardest on mothers, right?
(audience applauding and cheering)
Or the man who had to live with those mothers.
(audience laughing)
It was insane for, I don't know how my wife did it.
We had five children doing distance learning
and my kids were good.
They totally kept a distance from learning.
(audience laughing)
We asked children to do school
on the same device they play "Minecraft."
(audience laughing)
It's like holding a WeightWatchers meeting in a Wendy's.
(audience laughing)
I mean it was insane.
(audience applauding and cheering)
I definitely gained an appreciation
for how difficult it is to be a teacher
and what a poor career choice that was.
(audience applauding and cheering)
- Everybody remembers this particular type of teacher
where she'd see us talking
and she'd make a big deal out of it, "Ah, ah, wow, wow.
We've got a conversation over their children.
Yes, we've got a conversation over there.
No, no, no, stand up." (audience laughing)
Do you remember that classic line?
We'd all say, "No, but Miss, I'm not even doing anything."
"That's right, you're doing nothing.
(audience laughing)
Now, stand up, I said." (audience laughing)
Do you remember someone in your lesson
would try and help you out?
Do you remember that one person that will try
and help you out and defend it for you as well?
"Nah, no, you know what Miss? He wasn't even talking.
I swear to you, I was sitting right next to him.
You know, he wasn't even saying nothing.
He's actually doing his work this time.
You know, Miss, I feel like you've been prejudiced
'cause he's Black.
I swear to you, he didn't even say nothing."
Does anyone remember the day
when your teacher just lost it?
Remember that day when your teacher just had enough
and she just lost her stuff?
Remember that teacher to start loading up?
"What, (audience laughing)
what, (audience laughing)
what? (audience laughing)
You can fuck off." (audience laughing)
Do you remember when teachers lost it?
"Everyone's talking." (audience laughing)
"No one's listening." (audience laughing)
And this is teacher's favorite line
ah, teachers love saying this,
"For crying out loud, children."
(audience and Mo laughing)
"Now you, you fuck, being as you like to talk
you can tell everybody in this class," "Yes."
"What osmosis is." "Huh?"
"No, no, no, no you's like to talk
yes, like to talk."
So I was in this lesson, so I was like,
"Osmosis, osmosis, osmosis, osmosis.
Well, osmosis is actually the process where
a high concentration goes into a low concentration
bit like if put potatoes in water,
they expand with weight and density."
(Mo breathing heavily)
Anyway, as I was saying, basically like
(audience laughing)
this teacher lost, her mind, started shaking,
"How? How dare you in my lesson." and he'd always say those
middle class words I didn't understand growing up,
How dare you on the day of the Sabbath,"
"The Sabbath? Sabbath. (audience laughing)
It's Orange Wednesday, what's this Sabbath thing about?
How do I get involved there?" (audience laughing)
"Do you know what? You can get out, you can get out."
You know, walking towards the door, you know, on my way out.
You know, spending the (indistinct) don't know (indistinct).
(audience laughing)
But you know what? I've had enough.
I've had enough of being treated like this
you know, feeling oppressed, you know?
'Cause right now I'm in year 11, soon I'm gonna leave.
I'll be in college making some real money
you know, making some EMA.
(audience laughing)
I said, "You know what Miss?
I'd actually be listening, if you was doing your job
(audience laughing)
which would be teaching."
The whole class simultaneously went, "Ooh, (indistinct.)"
- Listen, I walked out of that lesson, yeah.
Like I was in slow motion.
(upbeat theme music)