W. Bruce Cameron...Creator of 8 Simple Rules...Practical Joke

The wheels of Justice turn slowly in the eighth grade, so it has taken this long for my 8th grade son to be convicted on charges of disrupting class the day before his winter break.

School that day consisted of a field trip to see a live performance of A Christmas Carol. This incensed my boy, who believes cultural benefit can only be found in entertainment that involves gruesome death. "I hate the whole thing," he fumed when he found out about it. "I hate the ghost of Christmas presents, I hate the guy who bahs 'humbug,' and I hate Emily Dickinson."

"I think that covers it," I told him dryly.

Clever in the ways of bureaucracy, my son and a handful of his friends decided to "forget" to turn in their permission slips, thus effecting a pocket veto on his participation.

The school figured that as long as they were saddled with these recalcitrant kids they might as well try to teach something, so they elected to assemble the boys in a classroom and show them a video.

The movie they picked was A Christmas Carol.

So while the rest of the 8th grade was experiencing live theater, my boy and his co-conspirators settled in to watch a tape of the same show. (I believe it was the musical version starring William Shatner as Scrooge.) A teacher sat in the room to make sure the boys didn't accidentally enjoy themselves.

Right about at the time when Shatner finishes singing his solo, "Beam Me Up, Christmas Future," and Cratchit (played by Leonard Nimoy in a crowd-pleasing cameo) kicks in with "Ain't Got No Emotion For You Babe," the teacher announced he was leaving to phone his psychotherapist, and would be back in a few minutes. (In the crime business, this lack of supervision is called the "opportunity.")

My son, who had the "motive" to do just about anything but watch some stupid show written by Emily Dickinson, took advantage of the teacher's absence to leap to his feet and slip in a different video: Jurassic Park.

After about half an hour the teacher returned to the room and slouched into his chair, moodily gazing at the action on the screen. Some time passed and then he sat up straight: Hey wait a minute-since when did A Christmas Carol have velociraptors?

"Did someone put in a different tape?" he demanded to his students. This resulted in wide-eyed, innocent looks. What do you mean, a different tape?

My boy was in big trouble. As a result of his "so-called practical joke" (as his principal bitterly characterized it), the class failed to complete their viewing assignment; apparently by the time the teacher realized what was going on, he had already gotten caught up in the movie, so they watched the rest of Jurassic Park. Never mind that everyone in my son's criminal gang received an 'A' on the pop quiz, having viewed the RuPaul version of A Christmas Carol on television just a few days before-as the note home put it, "dinosaurs and Dickens are not the same thing."

Well, hard to argue with that.

My son had already served a week of detention, but the school felt parental probation was called for as well. The task fell to me to explain to him that by depriving himself and his fellow students of the intended video experience, he had committed a grave transgression which would go on his Permanent Record and might prevent him from being admitted to medical school.

As I sat with him at the kitchen table, my face full of grave reproach, I was reminded of when I'd been his age and had got my hands on a megaphone belonging to a friend's father. My 15-year-old voice having deepened in anticipation of a maturity not yet emotionally realized, I'd thought it might be funny to stand outside a neighbor's house and use the bullhorn to boom "This is the police! Come out with your hands up!"

I'd choked on my own laughter, but everyone else had voted I was in Big Trouble.

Facing my child, I decided to emulate my father's words after the bullhorn incident.

"Some people," I told my son, "have no sense of humor."

Write to Bruce at bruce@wbrucecameron.com