I knew it was going to be a long day the second I saw the wall.

A fresh sheet of paper was taped up in the hallway with a smiling cartoon trash can and big friendly letters: “Gum goes here!” Except it wasn’t friendly anymore—because the page was already covered in a rainbow of chewed gum, stuck on like tiny gross trophies. Across the hall, a group of students were laughing so hard they had to lean on the lockers. One of them wheezed, “Bro… the administrator is gonna puke.

” That was the whole point. They weren’t trying to be helpful. They were trying to be iconic.

And honestly? I get it. Gum is the one thing schools can’t seem to win against. You can mop floors and wipe desks all day, but gum ends up under tables, on chair legs, pressed into tile like it lives there. Somebody has to scrape it off inch by inch while everyone else walks by pretending not to see. Kids know adults hate it, so when someone posted a sign basically saying “Put it here,” the prank wrote itself: Fine.

We’ll put it HERE. All of it.

Right on cue, our administrator came storming around the corner and stopped dead in front of the gum board.

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