Part of the joy of being a teacher is the fact that teenagers are utterly hilarious. Sometimes they mean to be funny, and other times they just don’t realize how entirely ridiculous they are.

Last Friday afternoon, I noticed a sheet of looseleaf lying on the hallway tiles near my classroom door. It was the kind with the ruffled edges from being torn out of a coil notebook. There is nothing unusual about a piece of paper abandoned in the hallway, even one with a drawing on it, but when I neared the battered sheet, I stopped and gawked. As the art teacher, I wasn’t impressed by the sketch, but as a human being with a sense of humour, I very nearly fell off my flip flops right there next to the lockers.

Emblazoned on the paper in blue ball-point, no pun intended (you’ll understand in a moment) was a giant male appendage that rhymes with weenus. I’m not going to use the real word here on my blog, not because I’m feeling prudish, but because I am well aware that if I use the phrase “giant _______” on my blog I will attract the wrong type of traffic entirely through Google searches.

It’s actually not that unusual to find drawings of such body parts in school hallways: teenage boys are obsessed with drawing junk. Here’s the kicker, though, this one had grand wings and was breathing plumes of raging fire. The “artist” turned the basic model, complete with danglers and other anatomical details, into a dragon. As in mythical beast from the quests of knights and other mystical heroes. As in villain from most medieval tales, able to roast a flock of sheep or other vapid stock to medium well with one rogue sneeze.

I’m not saying the “dragon” was a work of masterful art: on the contrary. The creature had so many odd bends in its…um…torso? that it seemed to have been slammed in several doors. Proportion was also an issue for the drawing in general, but I would have to give full marks for creativity. Don’t get me wrong: I don’t encourage drawing this sort of thing, and if I’d caught the kid I would have had to punish him, but oh man was it funny!

I saved the best part for last. Scrawled in the corner of this unique and imaginative sketch was a tiny stickman, brandishing a sword. He held a mighty shield aloft to protect himself from the raging fire breath of the “dragon.” Although the little stick knight was only one hundredth the size of the beast he faced, pure heroism must have coursed through his veins because he stood rooted to the spot.

I have no idea what coursed through the veins of the “dragon”; perhaps it’s best not to know.

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