I went to my daughter's school, got my yellow visitor's pass and got down to work. I was there to string student "thank you" cards together for the teacher. I tied them carefully with ribbon, brought them to the classroom and waited for the door to open.
8-year-old: "Our room is locked in case Mr. PC comes."
Dad: "Oh really, who is Mr. PC?"
8-year-old (quietly, under her breath): "The bad guys."
Dad: "Oh."
I guess it should have clicked right away. I was hoping Mr. PC was a school administrator or a visiting official. It wasn't. I was hoping Mr. PC was anything other than what it was, a nickname for the bad guys who'd want to come to harm a school. "PC" as in "protect the children." It was just a big reality check, more of a reality smack in my face that the kids are not only aware of the bad guys, but are training for them and preparing for them in case they should arrive in their classrooms.
Today, I quizzed my daughter about Mr. PC.
I asked her what the kids do if Mr. PC comes. Someone gets on the loud speaker and warns everyone that Mr. PC is there. She said they then lock the doors, turn off the lights and hide. They practice to prepare. She said the drills can be scary, sometimes the janitor or someone else will come around and try to open the door during the drills to make them more realistic. She told me she wasn't just content to hide though. She confided in me that she had been plotting her OWN escape route too. She's been thinking about climbing on the counter and then climbing on the cabinet and then removing ceiling tiles to hide up in the ceiling in the event Mr. PC ever shows up. My 8-year-old told this to me.
I told her she needed to listen to the teacher in that situation and do whatever the teacher needs her to do. I made her promise. She agreed.
People often joke that "kids these days" have it easy. Well, I can tell you one thing. While the generation before us did stop and drop bombing drills, and the generation after us is now doing school shooting drills, I did none of these. Maybe WE had it the easiest of all. I'm grateful my daughter's school does these drills. I'm grateful and tremendously sad at the same time.
Mr. PC is the new boogieman, thanks to the many soulless psychopaths who have made their way into schools and made this type of drill even necessary. This is not a debate on guns. This is not a debate about civil liberties. This is a debate about good versus evil. I only hope there's enough good out there to keep Mr PC away from our kids.
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