Thread: An Act of Rebellion!

In my limited experience in this world, there are few people who are truly passive on every issue. We seem as humans to have this need to be individual, differentiated and unique. After all, wouldn't life be boring if everyone were the same?

However, in certain cultures, societies or even just cliques within them, there's this running theme of complacency and monotony... in other words, a kind of unspoken rule that we must all be the same, or "normal".

With these two things being at odds with one another, there's obviously going to be folks who go against the grain (and no, I don't mean ATG ) from the norms society or just our social circles place on us.

So, let's hear it... what are some things you do or have done in the past, shaving with a straight razor aside, that most would consider abnormal, against the grain or down right rebellious?

I'll start... In high school during my sophomore year, we had a change in the dress code that banned a person from wearing any kind of chain wallet. The school system considered them to be a weapon. Now, in the year previous, we could wear them and to my knowledge, there were no incidents of students using them to attack one of their peers. Why the change was implemented made no sense to me, as a bag filled with heavy books makes a much more efficient weapon, as does a pen, hard plastic lunch tray, instrument (if you were in band) or even the chairs we sat in. Yet, there were no changes to these items i.e. pencils only, styrofoam trays, etc.

Well, the story goes that no one bothered to inform us that the changes had been implemented, so you can imagine my surprise when I was disciplined for wearing one on my fourth day of school. I protested verbally, to no avail, and rather heatedly as well. It led to my being suspended for 10 days. Fine. Whatever. I did my time.

Flash forward to several days after my return from suspension. I was still pretty ill that the school had implemented such a nonsensical rule, supported by no real logic and had punished me for voicing a dissent. After all, a slew of makeshift weapons were at every students beck and call. I decided to protest the dress code by wearing a dress to school. I made sure it fell within the guidelines of the dress code, such as not having spaghetti straps, certain length, etc. and also made sure the dress code didn't specifically prohibit males wearing a dress. It did not.

About 11:00 that morning, my mother received a call from my administrator. The conversation was similar to the following:

"Mrs. crouton976, are you aware that your son is wearing a dress this morning?"
"No, I'm not. In fact, he was wearing jeans and a t-shirt when he left the house."
"Well, he's wearing a dress now...(long pause)"
"I see. Well, does it fall within the dress code guidelines?"
"Technically, yes, but, I mean, he's wearing a dress...(another long pause)"
"Well, Mrs. Administrator, He's probably doing it out of protest and I guess you shouldn't have pi**ed him off. He came to you with what he felt was an unjust and illogical rule on the school's part, and you ignored him. You then further decided to punish him for not being complacent and for posing an opinion that differed from your own. His actions don't surprise me at all. Now, concerning the dress, is it harming anyone that he's doing it? Does it harm anyone when girls do it?"
"Well, no, but-"
"So you're saying that something that is extremely commonplace every other day is now made uncommon by his actions?"
"Well, yes, but-"
"And are you now going to ban EVERYONE from wearing dresses because one student who was male wore one?"
"Well, no, but-"
"Then I take it that you're getting his message loud and clear?"
"I don't know... what do you think his message is?"
"That you made some rules that aren't logical, and if you can be illogical then so can he."
"Well, I fail to see-"
"That's exactly his point, Mrs. Administrator... you fail to see."


It's amazing how well my mom knows me.

I was the first to do this in protest, but wasn't the last or only. There were some changes in how the administration dealt with students, too. The rules didn't change, unfortunately, but the attitudes in enforcing them did. I eventually got them to agree that so long as the chains weren't metal that a student could wear one. Lots of us ended up with plastic, hemp or canvas "chains" and were just fine with that because we didn't care about how lethal they were... It was a fashion statement not a weapon. To date, 15 years later, I've never seen someone use their wallet chain as a weapon (though it's possible that it's happened... I've just never witnessed it).

An added bonus was that I got to be on a first name basis with all of the administrators as well as several of the teachers, including ones I'd never had nor would have. This came to be out of respect for me rather than a disciplinary byproduct.