This might not be about you...

No, this might not be about you, you slender waif whose thoughts on my physical appearance fly quite plainly across your face as I check out at Walgreens or walk down the hall at school. I'm sure you aren't doing the full body checklist and you're definitely not mentally summing up that I clearly don't care about the way I look, since I teeter on the brink of death at 30. I'm sure you aren't thinking that if I was just skinnier I might be get a date once in a while. I know that's not what you're thinking.

This might not be about you, yes, you there, driving in the carpool lane at 6:32 in the morning, by yourself, on your cell phone, while you drink your grande nonfat extra shot caramel machiatto (no whip). This might not be about you breaking three different laws before breakfast, all because it's dark and no one can see that you aren't part of a carpool. I'm sure if you get stopped, you'll get a ticket, since all women who drive in the carpool lane and use their cell phone get tickets. Not just the ones who aren't so hot.

This might not be about you, the parent who assumed that your child was attending fourth period every day, even after several emails to the contrary. This might not be a call for help from your child that they need more attention. I'm sure your kid is fine and probably has great friends who are an excellent influence on him. In fact, I'm sure you're right. Your child is a responsible adult who is late getting home because he has kindly driven his friends home after practice several times, even when he's no longer a member of the team. I'm sure it wasn't him I saw smoking on that street corner last week, and it was probably the wall behind him that smelled like alcohol and pot yesterday.

This might not be about you, the coworker that talks down to others in any and every meeting. I'm sure you probably didn't actually mean to say that your way is the only way. I probably misunderstood you when you said that you want your students to use a writing method that as a school we have agreed is outdated and no longer relevant. I'm sure that your way is, in fact, the only way.

This might not be about you, the man who has decreed that every child in the entire nation must be judged by the same standard, no matter the fact that a founding principle of this nation is that diversity is welcomed and celebrated and that anyone can become anything they want to be. You're right, it does make sense to blame teachers, who see a child for 250 minutes a week, for 40 weeks, for all the problems in our schools. You're probably right, a child that can't mindlessly repeat meaningless information back on a test should be punished as well as the teacher, the principal, the school, and the district that he is a part of. And I'm sure you are correct, spending millions of dollars on a test that is changed every couple of years, a test that a teacher could have written in an hour or two, that is definitely, absolutely, undeniably fiscally responsible.

I totally agree. And this is probably not about you.