back in the good old days...
When I was still at school there was a particular history lesson that sticks out in my memory particularly well.

The sun was high in the sky and we were keen to get the lesson over and outside for dinner, the crap portable classroom with far too many windows we were in didn't help the heat situation much either. As you're probably aware certains smells seem to be 'enhanced' in heat, and very shortly after the lesson had started the unmistakeable scent of shit was in the air. We could all smell it. And everyone knew that someone in that room would never live it down. After enduring the smell for a good 20 minutes it was not getting any better, however at this point one of the usually very quiet kids who always wore a cap raises his hand and asks to use the toilet, suspicions aroused I also noticed the smell was almost completely gone...

It was now obvious to everyone one that this kid had shat himself, in a history lesson, at school. He'd practically signed his own death certificate, the boy who always wore a cap. A few minutes passed and he hadn't returned, even the teacher was beginning to wonder. After 10 minutes she felt it in her duty to investigate and the lack of authority transformed the classroom into a mass of conversation. Potential nicknames were being conceived and no one could wait until dinner to spread the news.

Finally the teacher returned together with the kid and left him outside and she entered and quietly explained he'd had an 'accident' and that anyone didnt keep it to themselves would be punished.

By the next day everyone in the school knew, and took pleasure in coming up with the best insults. A few weeks later he stops attending school at all and we begin to wonder if we actually managed to embarrass him out of the school.

Eventually news came of his whereabouts in a 'special assembly' - he'd died the day before from a cancerous brain tumor. It at this point that we all made the connection between his cap and hairloss due to chemotherapy. It was also at this point in time we realised he'd probably shit himself for this very same reason and it was the fault of our school that the last times he spent at school in his life were a misery.

I still feel an utter cunt about it, so the moral of the story is don't judge a book by its er... smell.

It might have cancer.
(alecto, Wed 28 Mar 2007, 0:06, Reply)